Crafting at its finest
by PrivateAlienate
Summary: Urist, the owner of the Varrock crafting stall, lends a helping hand to Doric and Boric by fulfilling their smaller orders. But when a few poor decisions accumulate, a Urist on the verge of being broke must work night and day to pull himself from the depths of financial turmoil. Will his new creation be of any help?
1. Prologue

_The prices used are either that of items bought or sold from NPC shops, or a reasonable price of the combined cost of its ingredients. For example, the pastry cost fourteen coins minus the one coin refund for the pot (thirteen coins), and the pie dish would have cost three coins if he had bought them, so the pie shell would have cost him sixteen coins. For him to sell it for forty coins to a citizen of Varrock, isn't unrealistic and means he more than doubles his money._

 _The Grand Exchange has been tweaked to make it more realistic in a world environment. Now people have to deposit items in a bank (any bank) and receive a note. This note is what is sold through the G.E. and the person who receives the note exchanges it for the item (or arranges for it to be delivered to the bank of their choice and then makes the exchange). This means that the G.E. isn't in charge of storing a large amount of items, rather they are stored across the banking world. People can sell their produce and organise transport accordingly. For example, someone from Al Kharid can sell a thousand coal to someone in Ardougne, without having to transport it to the G.E. and from the G.E. to Ardougne._

 _Checks also appear in the story and work in the same way as real life checks. Notes are used similar to a check. Both of these save on having to transport coins and goods by Urist and NCP's. Rather it is down to the bank to transport them, who have far more security to do so than NCP's. This saves on the need to be concerned about thieves, highwaymen and such alike. Although realistically, these people would still be trying to loot any valuable goods._

 _The prices for the ore, as they are NCP prices, are the same wherever he buys them. The prices are; Copper 20 coins, tin 20, iron 17, mithril 162, adamantite 400, runite 5000, coal 45. The runite I made up at 11000 (rough G.E. price) is quite expensive, and whilst 5000 is still expensive, it's more affordable. His selling price per bar is; bronze 50, iron 25, mithril 400, adamantine 750, rune 5500._

 _Bricks, like in real life, had been invented previously, but were made individually and left in the sun to bake. This meant, that like stone blocks, each brick was individual and had its own nocks and crannies. What Urist invents, is the modern day real life brick, which is mass produced and much cheaper to produce as it's less labour intensive. In fact, the version Urist invents, is the first ever mass produced brick, found in the early 1800's. They have since improved with machinery and are even less labour intensive now than the ones Urist invents. But such machinery would take a lot longer to invent, and most likely would cause such a large scale production of bricks, that Gielinor would have far more bricks than they would know what to do with._

 _Gunnar's Ground subtly appears in the story, and whilst it could be a quest story spoiler, the quest isn't of huge importance to the stories of Gielinor. But as it is still a quest and still a spoiler, I must forewarn people of the spoiler. There may be other quests that appear as well, and although there are spoilers to these quests, the quests aren't of huge importance. Quests are more likely to be of more importance in future stories._


	2. Chapter 1

_Prices correct on 29th November 2016_

 _The prices used are either that of items bought or sold from NPC shops, or a reasonable price of the combined cost of its ingredients. For example, the pastry cost fourteen coins minus the one coin refund for the pot (thirteen coins), and the pie dish would have cost three coins if he had bought them, so the pie shell would have cost him sixteen coins. For him to sell it for forty coins to a citizen of Varrock, isn't unrealistic and means he more than doubles his money._

 _The Grand Exchange has been tweaked to make it more realistic in a world environment. Now people have to deposit items in a bank (any bank) and receive a note. This note is what is sold through the G.E. and the person who receives the note exchanges it for the item (or arranges for it to be delivered to the bank of their choice and then makes the exchange). This means that the G.E. isn't in charge of storing a large amount of items, rather they are stored across the banking world. People can sell their produce and organise transport accordingly. For example, someone from Al Kharid can sell a thousand coal to someone in Ardougne, without having to transport it to the G.E. and from the G.E. to Ardougne._

"Thank you, Boric, it's much appreciated." Urist growled in his thick dwarven accent. Boric had just arrived from his father's infamous smithy, with a cart of coal, gold, silver and iron ores.

"It's fine, I'm grateful for a few days away from the heat o' the furnace, and _farthen's_ constant grumblings."

"Everything you need is in the chest under the stall." Boric grunted and took a seat on the wooden stool. Urist mounted the cart and whistled to the horse.

The road south took him past the general store and the Blue Moon Inn. The buildings of Varrock had scars of disrepair, with stones missing from the walls, fallen roof tiles and even walls that hadn't been completely built yet.

One of the guards nodded to Urist as he passed through the gate, the others paid no attention, fixing their stare firmly on the road in front of them.

 _I suspect they're keeping the druids in the corner of their eye too._

Urist took the path to the east to now attract their attention. A scattering of trees gave way to a cluster of rocks that Urist recognised. He tethered the horse to a nearby tree and knelt down to examine the rocks. Iron, clay, silver, tin and copper were present. Urist threw the cover of the cart back and lumbered the pickaxe over his shoulder. With a half hour of strenuous chipping away, Urist gathered the various ores on to the cart and once more starting his way along the road.

A small stone bridge wasn't far from the rock patch. Urist pulled his horse to a halt and observed the river. To the south east, it ran to Lumbridge and to the north west, it ran past the Barbarian Village and up to Edgeville. Urist reminisced of his trip to the river at the Barbarian Village just days ago. Every Sunday was his day to go fishing and recently he had found a patch of the river where he was more successful than normal. He didn't catch many fish, but more fish were caught at the Barbarian Village than his present location and Edgeville. His favourite fish at this location was salmon, especially when he had chance to smoke it for a couple of days first, but trout and pike were more frequent.

A splash brought Urist back to his surroundings. He looked down and saw an adventurer passing on a dugout.

"Where are you off to, young sir?" Urist shouted.

"The pub at Barbarian Village, to see a merchant about a gemstone. What about you?"

"Lumbridge, to see a man about a dog."

 _If he knows I'm knowledgeable about gemstones, he may drag me along with him._

"Sounds like you're barking mad." The adventurer laughed. Urist just grinned.

"Good day to you, sir."

"You too." The adventurer started paddling again and off Urist went. By the time he reached Beefy Bill, the sun was about to set. Beefy Bill was packing away his trading cart and nodded to Urist as he approached.

"Have you any room for a traveller?" Urist asked.

"Aye, if you're willing to help gather wood and make a fire." Urist nodded and dismounted, tethering the horse to the back of the caravan store. He looked around at the trees and spotted one that was starting to age down by the riverbank. The hatchet hung from his tool belt and glinted as he unsheathed it. It held quite softly in his hand, much more lightly than the pickaxe did and this made it possible to swing much more easily at the tree.

Urist observed his surroundings as he felled the tree. Seth Groats' large wheat field could be seen and the back of his chicken coop from a particular angle, the chicken's squawk's could just be made out.

Half hour past by the time he had the tree felled, and another half hour before he had some logs cut ready for the fire. Bill had packed his stall away and fetched some raw beef ready for their tea. Urist sheaved his hatchet and pulled out his tinder box, striking it vigorously until a flame appeared.

"Let's get this barbeque started." Bill chuckled, placing a frying pan, with the beef already in it, on the fire. "Where abouts are you from?"

"Keldagrim, but I grew up in the Dwarven Mine. What about you?

"Yanille. Grew up surrounded by merchants passing through Port Khazard, made a few coins giving them a hand."

"How did you become a merchant?"

"I got a job transporting fish from the river north of Ardougne into Ardougne, boxing it and transporting it across the city. There was quite a large supply of fish that was untouched and figured, if I could find a way of preserving it, I could transport it as far as Falador and Varrock. A merchant introduced me to a mineral called salt."

"Aye, I've heard of that." Urist grunted.

"If used correctly, it can preserve uncooked food. Before long, I was transporting fish across these lands."

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"How did you end up selling out the back of a gypsy caravan?"

"It's not a gypsy caravan, it's a trade caravan!" Bill looked to the ground in front of him and looked quite distained. "People cottoned on and too many of them started fishing, the prices dropped to the floor; the sea floor."

"I'm sorry to hear that. At least you've still got a way of keeping your head above water." Urist secretly chuckled to himself and turned the beef over. A while passed before Bill brought himself to restart the conversation.

"So what brings you south?"

"I have a crafting supplies stall in Varrock, but a friend who has a furnace near Taverley has recently received a large order from the white knights. He hasn't the time to complete his smaller order, so wants me to do them for him."

"Oh." Bill looked quite stunned. "Isn't there any furnaces in Varrock?"

"Nay. Anvil's, but not furnaces."

"Seems a shame to come all this way for a furnace."

"It is. But it's gotta be done."

"Crafting, you say. I have some cowhides you may be interested in."

"How much are they? And how many you got?"

"I have fifty. Was trying to get two hundred coins each for them but they're not selling, I'll do them for a hundred and fifty each if you buy 'em all."

"I haven't enough money, even if I visited the bank." Urist's smile dropped to a melancholy look. Bill thought for a moment.

"Are you in any rush to sort out your smelting?" Urist shook his head. "I've got a load of empty pots that I just can't budge. There's a wheat field and a mill south of here. Fill the pots with flour and the money I make from selling them will cover the cowhides."

"Are you sure?"

"Aye. Nothing like an old fashioned bit of bartering to see us through." Urist smiled and nodded. He forked the beef onto the plates and passed one over to Bill. They ate joyously and spent the evening talking about past times.

Urist awoke to the smell of sardines cooking. Bill was prodding them with a knife.

"Rise and shine, sleepy head." Urist grunted and sat up, staring hungrily at the sardines. Bill used the knife to spoon them onto plates and passed one over. Urist used his fork from last night to decimate them like a ravenous cat. "Blimey! You're hungry." Bill passed over his plate, Urist looked stunned. "It's alright, I've got some more on the cart." Urist snatched the plate and devoured those sardines too. Bill pulled a wheelbarrow full of empty pots from under his cart and sat it next to the camp. He returned to the cart and started fiddling around for the sardines.

"Is it fine to start on these pots?" Urist shouted over.

"Go ahead, my friend." Bill didn't turn around and just waved at Urist, who left the plates and fork on the log he was sitting on and hurried off with the cart. The wheat field and mill were only five minutes' walk away, but Urist noted the mill had three floors. Whilst that was fine, with Urist's physicality, he was sure he was going to be out of breath with all the stair climbing by the end of the morning.

And sure enough, he was. Each bail of wheat had to be carried to the top floor before it could be milled. Once the grinder was full with flour at the bottom, he had enough to fill five pots. He had sixty pots in total.

Early afternoon, he returned to Bill and handed the wheelbarrow over.

"Thank you, good sir. I have loaded the cowhides on to your cart for you already. It has been a pleasure, and if you're ever in the area again, pop back and see me." Urist offered his hand and Bill shook it. Urist mounted and Bill un-tethered the horse for him, slapping it's rear end to get it moving.

Past the wheat field and mill, and past a field of cabbage, Urist came to a chicken coup on the west side of the river to Seth Groats' east riverbank coup. A farmer was picking eggs and putting them into a bucket as Urist whistled over the slate wall. The farmer looked and made his way to the wall.

"How can I help?"

"I was wondering if you'd put me up for the night?"

"Have you the means to pay?"

"Not with coins, but I can run errands, and I don't mind sleeping in the coup as long as the chickens don't bite." The farmer had to think for a few moments.

"When I've filled this bucket with eggs, could you take it to Seth across the river? Ask him to put them with the other eggs and fill the bucket with milk, then bring the bucket of milk back here. Could you do that?"

"Certainly." Urist waited for the bucket to be filled, and made haste. He passed the training ground, a goblin, the furnace and crossed the bridge, up past Gillie and her milking cows and knocked on Seth's door. A few minutes past and Seth didn't answer the numerous knocks, so Urist walked around the corner to the coup and spotted Seth.

"Sir, I'm here to give you these eggs. The farmer across the river sent me. He said he's like his bucket emptying and filling with milk, please." Seth nodded and fulfilled the request, passing the empty bucket back to Urist.

"If you ask Gillie over there, she'll fill the bucket with milk."

"Thank you. Do you by any chance sell your produce?"

"Aye, normally in Lumbridge, but will sell them to anyone with coin. I sell raw chickens for sixty coins, eggs for four coins, raw beef for fifty nine coins, feathers for six coins and cowhides for twenty coins."

 _That's very cheap on the cowhides._

"How many have you of each?"

Seth huffed as he thought about it. "Sixteen chickens, eighty six eggs, a hundred feathers, fourteen beef and fourteen cowhides."

 _That's three thousand and ten coins._

"If I buy them all without haggling, would you put me up for the night tomorrow? I don't mind sleeping in the coup."

"Aye, I'd do that.

"I'll take them all then, but hold them back until I arrive tomorrow, please." Seth shook his hand. Urist took the bucket to Gillie and swapped it for an already full bucket of milk. Urist had to wrestle with his posture to carry the full bucket across uneven terrain without spilling any milk, but he took his time and finally made it.

The farmer thanked him and informed him that tea would be ready in an hour. Urist led his cart by foot to the smithy and tied his horse to the railing of the training arena. He smelted the iron ore into four bars and hammered them into two pickaxes. He did the same with the copper and tin, into hatchets. Before he knew it, the hour was up and he rushed to take the cart back to the farm.

"Your tea's going cold." The farmer called as Urist burst through the door.

"I'm terribly sorry." He replied, hanging his coat on the door knob. He ran over and took his place, tucking into the omelette in front of him.

"I have a blanket ready for you on the chair by the door." Urist nodded as he ate. "I'll need you to take a tray of cheese over to Seth in the morning and bring back two buckets of milk. Then the eggs will need collecting, and swapping again like this evening." Urist nodded and scoffed the last of his food. Before the farmer could speak, Urist left the table, grabbed his coat and blanket, and left. He settled down for the night in between the door and the dairy churn. Just as he got comfy, rain started pouring; some thundering against the tiles of the porch way and some avoiding it's protection and reaching Urist's blanket. The chickens didn't take lightly to the rain either, causing a flurry of squawking which was a lot louder than it had been the evening before. To make things worse, Urist wasn't entirely sure if he could afford the products he had ordered from the farmer.


	3. Chapter 2

_As long as I have enough coins, which I'm sure I have. The eggs I'll sell quickly. The beef and the chickens won't take long to sell either. The feathers are hit and miss but should be fine. It's just the cowhides. But most of them haven't cost me anything, anyway._

Urist stood and hung his blanket over a washing line to dry. The farmer pulled the door open and thrust a plate with three fried eggs on it.

"Sorry, I haven't much else to spare."

"This'll do, thank you. Thank you for having me."

"Did you sleep well?"

"The rain was a nuisance, but I'll survive. The blanket's a little wet, though." The farmer nodded and closed the door. "Nice to talk to you as well." Urist gobbled down his breakfast to start his work as soon as he could. He left the plate and fork on the doorstep and used the empty bucket by the dairy churn, emptied the rain water out and started picking the freshly lain eggs. Most of them were still quite warm.

He ran over to Seth, who was just leaving his house, and gave him the eggs. Seth gave the bucket to Gillie, who was making her way to the cow field, and gave Urist two buckets of milk. Urist struggled once more to carry them over to the other farmer. He swapped milk for cheese and hurried over to Seth, who swapped the cheese for a bucket of milk.

"He's got you busy this morning." Seth joked. Urist grunted and started his uncomfortable journey. The farmer thanked him for the last of the milk and bid Urist farewell. He took his cart back to the smithy and started by smelting the silver ore into unstrung symbols. The iron ore and coal Doric had sent was made into steel armours and a couple of longswords.

Urist looked to the sun and figured it was mid-morning, so he left a guard parading the area to look after his cart whilst he made his way to the Lumbridge swamp, with his rod in one hand and a handful of bait in the other. If there was one item Urist wouldn't leave Varrock without, it was his rod.

On the western bank of the river, Urist pitched up, baited his rod and threw it out. The sun shone on Urist as he sat waiting for a nibble.

Urist started to open his eyes. The sun shone brightly in the middle of the sky, it was now lunch time.

 _Sugar! I lost track of time._

He stood up, ruffled his clothes and started to look around at his equipment. A dozen sardine's lay on a large wooden plate, gutted and ready to cook.

"I found you sleeping, so I caught some sardines for you. I hope they were what you were trying to catch."

"Yes ... thank you. Who are you?"

"Father Urhney. I live in a hut here in the swamp."

"I bet you get a lot of rats visiting you in the night."

"I'd rather rats than some of the humans I've encountered in my time." Urist laughed.

"That's very true." Urist pulled out some baking paper and wrapped the fish in it. "Thank you for your help. I'm afraid I can't offer anything in return." A thought came to him. "Except maybe a couple of these fish." He returned them to the plate and handed it to Urhney.

"Thank you," Urhney said as Urist disassembled his rod. They waved each other off and Urist made his way back to Lumbridge. There was a bank on the top floor of the castle, Urist had overhead the town crier mention. The castle was quite grand, but not as grand as Varrock's castle. Two fountains entertained some of Varrock's citizens and the bushes were maintained by a gardener. Inside the castle, a large kitchen supplied the even larger dining room next to it. Stairs spiralled on either end of the castle, leading to the first and second floor. The first floor held the Duke's bedroom and a room with a spinning wheel. The top floor had a small bank.

Urist made his way to the top floor and had a breather overlooking the courtyard below. Fishermen were fishing, tree cutters were cutting, smiths were hammering and most important; guards were guarding.

Urist approached a bank clerk.

"May I have my bank balance please, lovey?" Urist passed over his bank book. The clerk flicked through the pages and after finding the appropriate one, searched through some paperwork in the filing system behind her. She pulled some parchment over and used the information on it to write Urist's bank balance on his book. After passing it back, Urist looked at it a few moments.

"I'd like to make a withdrawal of three thousand two hundred coins." Urist passed the book back to the clergy.

"Are you sure? You haven't much more in your account, sir, and you haven't made such a sizeable withdrawal previously."

"I'm positive, I'll be depositing it, and hopefully a little more, in Varrock a few weeks from now." The clergy nodded and knelt. She started fiddling with something under the desk, but Urist couldn't see what.

 _It's most likely a chest of some kind with all the money in._

A couple of minutes passed and eventually she stood up with a full money pouch. She wrote down the transaction in the book and handed both the book and pouch to Urist.

"Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?"

"No, that's it, thank you." Urist nodded and left. He returned to the road and along it, past the farmer and the wheat farm, and up to Beefy Bill, who was just finishing with a customer.

"I've brought you some sardines to say thank you. I know how hard it is to gather food in these parts, especially when tied down to your work." Bill nodded.

"Thank you. Not many people would have done that. I can spare you some beef if you'd like. It's the only food plentiful with this cow farm."

"Only if you're sure, I wasn't expecting it. I just thought as you have an appreciation for fish." Bill held up his hand to silence Urist and turned to his cart. He wrapped up some beef and swapped it for the fish. "Thank you."

"And you." They shook hands and off Urist went, back to his cart. He made his way across the bridge and noticed a string of items along the riverbank. Not much attention was paid towards them, Urist had to get to Seth before he started selling those items to other people. The horse was unfamiliar with the route, but Urist managed to guide him around the bends in the road and to Seth's farm. He tethered the horse to a wooden fence a little further north where the road was wider to allow for those passing it. Seth called him over from by the chicken coup and Urist returned the greeting with a wave. He walked over, but only got as far as the wall when Seth started talking.

"I have a proposal for you. I could sell you some more eggs, if you'd be willing to take two more buckets of milk over to the other farmer and pick up the bucket of eggs."

"Sell me that tray of cheese for a fair price too, and I'll consider it."

"I don't know if it's a fair price, but I can do them for eight coins a block. I have ten of them."

"Aye, I accept." Seth whistled Gillie over and she handed Urist the buckets of milk. Urist huffed and puffed as he carried, what he hoped were his last buckets, along the dirt track and across the bridge. The farmer thanked him greatly and gave him the eggs.

"You can put them straight on your cart. I've already put your other items on there." Urist grunted and found the eggs surrounded by other products to keep them from rocking on the journey ahead. Urist added these eggs to the pile and covered them over.

"That'll be three thousand and ninety coins please, good sir." Urist counted out a hundred and ten coins and put them in the pouch on his belt. The other pouch, from the bank, he handed over to Seth. "I'll count it when we get in, could you just help Gillie feed the chickens?" Urist grunted and Gillie handed him some seeds. Seth made his way around the back and started clanging with some tools.

"And what relation are you to Seth, madame?"

"I'm his daughter."

"Does your mother help around the farm too?"

"She sells our milk, cheese, and eggs at the farmers' markets."

"Oh, aye, I sell her from time to time at the Varrock one. She sells out quite quickly."

"She does indeed. Has her regulars, our ma' does." They threw the last of the seed to the chickens. "Da', we're done."

"I'll be right with you. Take the gentleman inside for a whiskey." Gillie led the way and opened the door for Urist. She took his coat and offered him a seat at the kitchen table. The whiskey was already on the table with three glasses.

Gillie re-appeared and started pouring just as Seth entered. He placed the pouch and took his coat to the coat rack.

"Where'd you get this whiskey?" Urist called out.

"Had it shipped in from Ali, the barman at The Asp & Snake Bar."

"Where's that, if I may ask?"

"Pollnivneach, north of Menaphos along the river. Cost just five coins, that bottle did, twice that for the transport." Seth returned to the table and poured the coins on the table.

"Sounds like you got a canny deal." Urist downed his drink as Seth started counting. Gillie took the opportunity to start roasting a chicken in the background. The smell soon filled the room and enticed Urist's taste buds.

"I almost forgot the smell of chicken roasting."

"We have the pleasure of smelling it regularly and we still enjoy it." Seth grinned. He finished counting and put the money back in the pouch. "It's all there. It's been great doing business with you. That should keep us going, even if all else fails." Urist nodded. Seth's wife burst through the door and was stunned by Urist at the table. "We have a visit, my love. This is Urist, he's a -"

"I sell crafting supplies at Varrock market."

"Oh yes, I thought I recognised you. Nice to meet you." She stepped forward and offered her hand. Urist noticed that she was quite taller, slightly taller than Seth even. She had long brown hair, tied back to prevent it interfering with her work, and quite weathered skin. Her physique was quite tough and her grip quite strong.

The four settled down for their tea and spent the evening talking merrily and drinking whiskey. At the end of the evening, Gillie pulled out a makeshift bed and made it up near the fire. Urist advised against it, but welcomed the comfort, especially after the night before.

Urist slept so well, that it took the smell of food cooking to wake him. Gillie had a frying pan over the range and her parents were nowhere to be seen. Urist sat up and pulled on his boots, wiping the sleep from his eyes when he finished.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Better than the night before. What are you cooking?"

"Steak, chicken, fried egg, onion rings, chips and fried tomato. Need a hearty breakfast before you leave."

"You shouldn't have."

"I shouldn't, but we all like a hearty breakfast here." Gillie started dishing up just as his parents appeared through the door. They sat around the breakfast table, including Gillie once the food had been plated, and they all started eating.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Urist said as he pulled his coat over and opened the front door. "And thank you for selling me your products."

"And thank you for your help." Seth waved Urist off and started fetching buckets for the milking. Urist started on his way back to Varrock. The road was a little uneven still, until he came to the road from the Mage Training Arena to Varrock, which was a cobbled road. The road weaved between the large wheat field Seth owned and a field with sheep in. A little further on was the stone circle.

Urist tugged his hood over his head and steadied himself so as to not look in that direction. Comfort only started to re-appear once he had passed the first of the guards. The stone streets of Varrock were very welcoming and the sound of people going about their daily lives was a relaxing sound.

Urist pulled up by his stall. His draw dropped. It was completely empty and an advertisement for it to be let hammered on each of the front posts. Boric was sat on the stool, with his head leant against the wall behind, and snoring avidly

A fist slammed on the stall and Boric shot out of his skin.

"I'm terribly sorry, Urist, there wasn't anything I could do."

"What happened?"

"It was rent day today -"

"I could have sworn it was tomorrow. Either way, I left enough money in the chest."

"I spent it all."

"On what?" Urist started getting infuriated.

"Staying at a bed and breakfast. You didn't leave me with the key to your house, so couldn't stay there." Urist opened his coat and felt inside his coat pocket. He pulled a key out.

"Damnit!"


	4. Chapter 3

"But I thought rent day was tomorrow!"

"It's still late."

"The money is right here." Urist shook his money pouch vigorously. The rent collector thought for a few moments. His office was just inside of the wall, next to the grand exchange. The grand exchange was a fascinating place, Urist thought, as it made it much easier for sellers to find buyers for their produce. Sellers were obliged to swap items in the bank south of the exchange for notes, and take these notes to the clerks at the exchange. If they had a large quantity of items, they could do the same at their nearest bank, anywhere in Gielinor. As items sold, the buyer would receive the note and swap it with the bank for the items they had just purchased, or request for them to be delivered to the bank they wished to swap the note at. Agents could place orders on the client's behalf and either post the note to them, or the safer option of swapping it at the bank for them and having the goods transported to them. A large warehouse near to the south gate housed a lot of goods about to be sold or purchased from the G.E.

"I guess it saves having to find someone else for the stall. It's twelve coins for this upcoming week, and if you have it, another twelve for next week. Might as well pay it now, saves you coming again in a week."

 _Saves you coming in a week more like._

Urist counted out his coins and the collector wrote out a receipt once he had. Urist stumbled back to his store and found Boric filling the stall with crafting equipment from the chest.

"I have some iron pickaxes from iron ore I found on the way to Lumbridge, could you sell them to Nurmof in the dwarven mines for me?" Boric grunted as he jumped by Urist's sudden return. "I'll sell the bronze hatchets," Urist pulled them off the cart. "And the food I'll put on display in the morning. The rest is all yours."

"Thank you for your help ... and I'm sorry about spending all of your money."

"Was my fault for not leaving you the key. And I'm sure you'll make it up to me at some point." Boric smiled and started to walk away. "Where are you off to?"

"Off to make it up to you." Urist shook his head and continued to finish off what Boric had started. He boarded the stall up at the end of it and returned home, tethering the cart to the nearest post. Boric returned not long after with a present in hand. It was a pair of gutted salmon wrapped in grease proof paper.

"Where did you get those from?" Urist asked with eyes bulging.

"A fisherman had caught them on the border of the Barbarian Village. He had enough and didn't mind parting with two for a few coins."

"So you didn't spend all my money?"

"I spent all of your money, but not all of mine."

" _Pffft_." Urist threw his hand in the air, like he was shooing a fly off, as he turned around and started preparing the tray to cook the fish on.

The evening soon passed and Urist welcomed is home comforts. Boric started snoring by the fire much sooner than Urist was used to going to sleep, but with the eventful few days, Urist returned to his bed and slept like a log.

The following morning, Urist woke to silence. Silence in his house; talking, carts and banging could be heard outside, but silence in a house with two people in was unexpected. Urist entered the kitchen but there was no sign of Boric. He threw some clothes on and rushed outside. The cart was gone.

 _I hope he hasn't started on his journey home with all those products on the back._

Urist jogged to his stall just two streets away and his jaw dropped to the floor. A large crowd was surrounding his stall.

Urist crept behind the stall to find Boric selling the food swiftly. He didn't get much chance to say anything before customers started thrusting products at him. Boric pointed to a piece of parchment on the table. It had the product and the price Urist had paid for them, and to the right Boric had put the price he was selling products. Chicken's for a hundred and fifty coins, eggs for sixteen coins each, beef for a hundred and fifty coins, feathers for twenty coins each and cheese for twenty-five coins.

 _Four eggs and a chicken._ "That's two hundred and fourteen coins, please."

They had sold all of the food by the end of the day. Urist shook Boric's hand and smiled at him.

"Thank you for your help."

"It was the least I could do." Urist gathered up the cowhides off the cart and Boric mounted. He nodded to Urist when he saw he had finished and whistled to the horse. Boric made his was westward, towards the dwarven mines and the setting sun. Urist headed in a similar direction, to the blacksmith, and through the back streets to a tanner. Through the window, it appeared the tanner was finishing for the day.

Urist quickly entered the workshop and threw the cowhides on the workbench.

"I'm sorry, I - " the tanner said as he turned around. "Oh! I'm terribly sorry, Urist, I didn't realise it was you. How many have you here?"

"Sixty-four. I only have some of them here, the rest are by my store. I'd like hard leather, please."

"That'll be a hundred and ninety-two coins. You may borrow the wheelbarrow to collect the others, I'll sort the hard leather out." Urist grunted and fetched the wheelbarrow from around the back. The cowhides loaded on to it quite well, but the barrow was very heavy to push, especially across the terrain of the back streets.

The tanner met him around the back and helped unload the barrow, as well as load it with the hard leather afterward. Urist pushed it, depleted, to his house and unloaded it as quick as his energy would allow. He returned the barrow and paid using his takings. It was only when he returned home, he was able to count them.

One by one, the coins were piled into piles of ten. He had takings of seven thousand, nine hundred and thirty-four coins. Plus the hundred and ninety-two he paid to swap his leather for hard leather, came to eight thousand, one hundred and twenty-six coins.

Urist put the seven thousand five hundred coins in a small chest ready to take to the bank, and the four hundred and thirty-four coins in his money pouch. He fetched some thread from his spare stock beneath his bed, and pulled out his needle from his tool belt. The evening drifted away beside the fire, crafting hard leather boots.

Sunshine beaming through his window work Urist the following morning. He was still sat in his wooden chair by the ... fire, a boot in one hand and the threaded needle in the other.

 _That's the boots finished, should start selling with the autumn approaching._

His tummy grumbled. A few potato's remained in the cupboard under the sink. He quickly wrapped it in foil and baked it in the oven, whilst getting the boots ready for the stall. The potato filled his moaning tummy and off he went for another day on the market.

That evening, he picked up the clay from beside the shoe bench just inside his front door, and took it to the potter's workshop in the south eastern corner of Varrock. He used the water pump to pump water onto the clay, softening them as he did. Once they were ready, he used the potter's wheel to mould them into pie dishes and fire them in the oven next to the wheel.

Urist carried the dishes in his backpack and headed for the cooking guild, a few meters south of the grand exchange. He knocked on the door. There was no reply for a few minutes. He knocked again, and after a few moments, a bearded cook with all his attire on opened the door a few inches.

"How can I help?" He asked rather sharply, as if he had been interrupted.

"I was wondering if you had any pots of flour for sale?"

"Oh, right, yes. They're fourteen coins each. How many would you like?"

"Out of interest, do you buy pastry dough?"

"I do, for seventeen coins, or eighteen coins if the empty pot is returned too."

"I'll have seventeen pots, please."

"That'll be two hundred and thirty-eight coins." Urist counted out the coins and handed them over. The cook closed the door as he fetched the flour and returned a couple of minutes later, handing them over when he did. Urist took them to the bank to the east, deposited the pie dishes and took the flour back to his house, where he used his sink to create pastry. He took the items back to the bank, used fourteen of the balls of pastry to line the pie dishes, and took the empty pots and other three pastry balls to the cooking guild. The cook gave him sixty-eight coins in exchange for his items.

"My name's Romily Weaklax if you pass by again." Romily extended his hand. Urist shook it.

"I may return for some more flour, but I can't promise anything."

"If you require a large order, leave me a note and I'll prepare it for you."

"Thank you," Urist grunted. He took his pie shells to his stall and placed them delicately at the top of his chest of supplies, underneath the stall, before locking it.

A week later and he had sold all the pie shells within a day or two, fetching forty coins each, or a grand total of five hundred and sixty coins. He had sold eighteen pairs of boots for thirty-seven coins each, bagging six hundred and sixty-six coins. This meant he had one thousand, four hundred and ninety coins on him.

Urist sat on his stall, minded his own busy, waiting for customers to appear, when a hooded figure appears beside his stall and leans against the wall. Urist didn't notice him at first, but soon looked up at him.

"I'd like to make a purchase."

"What kind of purchase?" The figure didn't say anything, he snuck Urist a note. He hid it under the stall and read it.

 _Sir,_

 _I am King Roald but I would be in your debt if you kept my identity secret. I would like to purchase a dragonstone ring to present to my fiancé, Ellamaria , on our wedding day. I do not trust many of the gem sellers in Varrock; like many human sellers, they have a tendency to liberate the money of those foolish enough to buy a rock. Dwarves are great craftsmen and from what I hear, quite trustworthy._

 _Thanks_

 _R_

"I can do that for you, but will need the money to purchase the ... stone." The figure placed a money pouch on the table and before Urist could say anything, he had disappeared. Urist scrunched up the note and put it in the pouch, tucking it safely into the inside pocket of his jacket.

A few hours passed before anything interesting happened again. A cart pulled up in front of Urist's stall with two dwarves sat upon it. The driver wore just bracers over his torso and yellow sack like trousers. His leather boots were of noticeable quality, though. The passenger was far more presentable. He wore royal green robes, with a gold and red pattern running down the front and a gold pattern around his forearms. His beard was kept quite tidy and his collar had fur, which added to his appearance of wealth.

The driver dismounted, fetched a pouch and from under the cover of the cart, and presented it to Urist.

"This is from Doric," Urist grunted and read the note.

 _Urist,_

 _Boric informed me of what happened with the rent and staying at the inn. He could have at least camped just outside of the city and scavenged for food to spare spending money. I have sent you the forty-five coins Boric spent, the eighty-four coins he received for the iron pickaxes, and the twenty coins I owe you for the work you carried out. I hope this doesn't deter you from carrying out similar work for us in the future and am sorry for my son's behaviour._

 _Thanks_

 _Doric_

"Thank you." The driver nodded and helped the passenger disembark.

"My name is Drorkar, I'm an agent of the consortium in Keldagrim."

"My name is Urist. I haven't been to Keldagrim since I was a babe." Drorkar gave a faint nod to this. "What brings you this far east?"

"I have seen your craftsmanship through the pickaxes you sold to Nurmof, and I must say, I'm quite impressed. I would like to offer you the opportunity to purchase ores mined at Keldagrim, from the consortium. And if you're willing, I can be your agent for selling finished products back to the businesses of Keldagrim. We're always in need of armour, weapons, and pickaxes, as well as pots of flour for our bakery. We also have a gem store who could supply the gems for your crafting needs."

Urist thought for a few minutes, demonstrating this by stroking his moustache.

"I haven't any means of transporting the goods I buy or sell."

"Lakki here is employed by the consortium for all its logistical requirements."

"What ores do you sell?"

"Copper, tin, iron, mithril, silver, gold and coal." Drorkar handed over a leaflet with the prices on.

"Hmmm. I'll give you a try by making an order." Drorkar quickly fetched out some parchment and a pencil. "I'd like to buy four gold ores, an emerald, a sapphire, a ruby and a dragonstone. And I do believe Nolar is still operating the Carefree Crafting Stall? The newsletter from the crafting guild keeps us updated on such information. I would like to purchase sixty-four threads from him if I may. They're normally four coins each."

"Six hundred, five hundred, two hundred and fifty, a thousand and ten thousand. And two hundred and fifty-six." Drorkar mumbled as he squiggled. "That comes to twelve thousand, six hundred and six coins," Drorkar said to Urist.

"I'll need to visit the bank before I can pay."

"Lakki, escort the gentledwarf to the bank," Lakki grunted and followed two steps behind Urist all the way to the bank next to the exchange. Urist withdrew one thousand, three hundred and eighty coins and used the one thousand, two hundred and twenty-six coins he had made from the pie shells and boots, along with Roald's money to pay for the order.

Urist handed a large money pouch over to Drorkar, who used the cart to count the money inside, and wrote out a receipt once it was. He handed over the receipt and bid Urist farewell. And off they went westward.

 _I've just given twelve thousand, six hundred and six coins to a pair of complete strangers. What have I done?_


	5. Chapter 4

_The cost of the furnace was deduced from the cost of a portable forge (57,536 as of 6th December 2016) rounded up to the nearest 100k. Also, with the average profit margins of smelting and/or smithing, 100k coins would take a large volume of products (other than rune) to recoup that investment. Whilst rune items will appear later in the story, he doesn't make the volume that players make in-game, otherwise it would be too easy for him to become rich._

 _They must be legit, Doric wouldn't have trusted them to deliver that money and note if they weren't._

Urist thought as he headed to Sani, the blacksmith south of the back next to the Grand Exchange. The sound of banging and clanking confirmed he was still at work.

Urist popped his head around the doorway and took a step inside once he could see Sani had seen him. Sani thrust the sword into a bucket of sand and placed his hammer on the anvil.

"What can I do for you, stranger?" Sani mocked, Urist smirked.

"I was wondering if I could use your desk to draw some designs. I might be a while though."

"Be my guest, come and go as you please."

"Thank you." Urist took a seat at the desk and pulled some drawing paper out of the umbrella stand styled container next to it. He started his trail of thought by examining how walls are currently built. Large blocks of stone were chiselled perfectly into rectangle blocks and the blocks were glued together with a paste similar to wattle and daub. The problem was; if a block for some reason fell out, it was very hard to replace. A new block would have to be chiselled to the exact measurement, or else it wouldn't fit. Even if it were perfect, to hold it and push it into the gap at the right angle, without damaging the now solid paste, was like finding a needle in a haystack. Then, and only then, the paste would need to be reinforced to make the new block stick in place.

Clay, on the other hand, was far easier to work than stone. You can always add more clay, where you couldn't add more stone. You can mould clay, where stone needs to already be a particular shape to begin with. But how to use clay to make blocks that could replace stone? Blocks. Rectangles. Bricks. A rectangular shaped piece of clay, that conforms to a mould, smaller than stone blocks and a size that could be held with just one hand. That would work! But it would need a mould for it to go in the pottery oven. That wouldn't be hard, just need a mould that leaves one side open. That would require a mould for every brick though, making each brick expensive. Unless, the mould could be used to shape the clay into a brick, and once a dries out a bit, the brick would be soft enough to slide out of the mould but hard enough to hold shape afterward. The bricks could be loaded on an oven tray, like cakes, and the tray put in the pottery oven to fire.

Urist quickly rolled up his designs and left the smithy, only to be greeted by complete darkness and a quietness Urist had noticed appear. Most Varrock folk were at home asleep by now or in the taverns drinking.

He took his designs home and was content to sleep on his chair by the fire. The following morning, excitement woke Urist and he ran straight to King Roald's palace, ignoring his stomach's warning of hunger. A guard at the front door of the palace put a hand up to Urist to stop him from entering.

"What is your visit concerning?"

"I would like to patent an idea of mine."

The guard nodded. "You'll want Reldo in the library. Follow me." The guard led Urist through a few rooms, one of which had King Roald whispering to a man with a cape that had the Ardougne symbol on the back. Both men glanced at Urist as he passed. In the library, the guard coughed causing Reldo to jump and look at them. "This gentle- ... dwarf is here to speak to you."

"Thank you." The guard exited the room and stood outside waiting for the meeting to conclude. Reldo offered Urist a seat at a table in the center of the room that was covered with books, closed and open. "How can I help?"

"I'd like to patent some designs I've created."

"Ah, certainly. I'll need to keep the designs here with me in this library, and a few days to complete the paperwork, but your designs will be patented."

"Will I be able to produce these creations now? Or will I have to wait for the paperwork to be completed?"

"No, you may do as you please now. Your designs are protected from the moment you leave the designs in this library."

"Is there anything I'm required to do?"

"Only collect the paperwork in a week's time."

"Thank you." Urist shook Reldo's hand and left. The guard made sure he led Urist out to save Urist accidently stumbling into the presence of the king. Urist ran to his stall and opened up, but using a chisel and a small block of marble, he started working on his mould.

During the day, he contemplated the incoming gold ore and having to travel all the way to Lumbridge again just to smelt it.

 _It's a shame we can't have a furnace here in Varrock._

Urist looked over at the gypsy tent and stared closely at behind it. He just made out the ruins of what appeared to be the foundations of another building attached to Sani's smithy.

 _I thought I saw ruins there. If he'd be willing, I could extend the smithy and we could have a furnace in there somewhere._

Urist visited Sani once more after work.

"Blimey! Something must have happened for you to appear two days in a row."

"I have a proposition for you. The ruins surrounding this smithy ..."

"Aye, the foundations for some more rooms."

"If I were to build those rooms, would you be willing to house a furnace here in your smithy?"

"I can't afford the construction costs."

"I'll do it. Might take me a while, but I can do it for free if you're willing."

"I can't afford the furnace." Urist had to think for a few moments.

 _It's going to cost roughly a hundred thousand coins to buy the furnace. I haven't that sort of money. The only way I could do it is through a loan._

"What if I can find a way of paying for it? I'd need to be able to use the smithy whenever I pleased."

"Tell you what, how about a partnership? If you can buy the furnace, I'll put aside the money I save from what I would normally pay out for bars instead of ore, and when I have the money, give you half towards the cost of the furnace. It'll save me money, so it's the least I could do. Might take me a while though."

"I agree." Urist shook Sani's hand.

The following day, whilst Urist was still chiselling at the marble, a shadow appeared over him. Urist looked up and saw the adventurer that he'd seen some time ago standing over him.

"I had no idea you were the crafting supplies seller here in Varrock ..." the adventurer said.

"Aye, here I am. And I think I guess why you're here." the adventurer pulled out a small stone and handed it to Urist.

"How much would you give me for that?" Urist knew at the first sight of it what it was. He lifted the stone up to the adventure and scratched the surface. Paint flaked off and the natural surface of the stone underneath appeared.

"It's not worth the stone it's painted on." The adventurer cursed. "I'm terribly sorry. Gems should only be bought from licensed gem sellers. There are a lot of fraudulent people out there."

 _Drorkar could be one of them._

The adventurer walked away quite solemnly and left Urist to make his mould.

At the end of his trading day, Urist made his way to the bank opposite Sani's smithy and spoke to the first available cashier.

"How can I help?"

"I'd like to talk to someone about taking out a loan."

"Certainly." The woman fetched a diary from a table behind her and looked at the days for that week. "We have a slot available on Friday at an hour before midday.

"That'll do."

"What is your name?"

"Urist." She wrote it down.

"And if I may ask, how much is the loan you wish to take out? And for what purpose?"

"Business, and ninety-five thousand coins, please." She wrote it down. Urist thought he saw her eyes bulging a little as she wrote it, but shrug it off as his imagination.

"Thank you, your appointment is now booked. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"No, thank you." The woman nodded and Urist returned to his stall to pick up the mould and chisel. He continued chiselling it beside the fire.

Urist dressed in his finest clothes, the suit he kept for weddings and funerals, except he hardly attended many of those so his suit needed brushing down and the odd leave of basil here and there to freshen its smell.

He was fifteen minutes early to his appointment. The cashier let him through to the back room and down a spiral of stairs to a room where he was offered a seat. Urist put his hand in his jacket pocket to reassure himself that his mould, finished last night, had been put there. Ten minutes later, an elf walked out of the office with his hand firmly on the hilt of his sword, followed by a member of staff. Urist only knew he was an elf, as he wore forest green attire, trimmed golden, with a gold trimmed emerald green chest plate, and bronze gold vambraces, knee high boots and plateskirt. White cloth weaved into the pattern and gold trimmed leaves added to the decoration. He held his golden helmet in his left hand, allowing for people to see his infamous elf ears and wheat yellow blonde hair.

"Mr Urist, please." The member of staff said as ad the elf glared down at Urist. Urist stood and entered the room, the member of staff closing the door once he had. "Take a seat. Would you like a drink?"

"Just some water, if I may." The member of staff poured some water for both of them and sat opposite Urist.

"My name's Ronald. I believe you are interested in a business loan for ... " He checked the paperwork. "Ninety-five thousand coins."

"Correct."

"What do you plan to use this money for?"

"The purchase of a furnace, which will be located at Sani's smithy across the road." Urist pulled out his mould and presented it to Ronald, who examined it eagerly. "I have created a way of building walls without the need for stone. This mould can be filled with semi-soft clay to shape it into a brick. These bricks will be a lot more manageable to work with than stone blocks and can be used to repair damaged walls much more easily than stone.

"I plan to use the ruins, the foundations, surrounding Sani's smithy to extend the building eastward and southward. This will provide plenty of room to house a furnace, and maybe even another couple of anvils."

"How do you plan on repaying the loan?"

"Sani has reassured me that with the money he saves buying ores instead of bars, he will save fifty thousand coins over a period of time and use that to pay his half of the furnace. Whether he pays this in time for the loan repayment or not, I will repay the loan myself. I will repay it by buying ores from the consortium in Keldagrim and smelting them into bars and, or, finished products such as armours and weapons. These weapons and armours, I can sell back to shops in Keldagrim, and shops all across Gielinor -"

"And the kingdoms of Gielinor."

"If need be to repay the loan."

"That would mean this bank could be seen as supporting the wars of Gielinor by financing its weapon maker."

 _This isn't good. What do I say now?_


	6. Chapter 5

_Making the bricks was formulated by calculating how much in-game time it would take for a player. He needed 3337 bricks for the eastern room and 2632 bricks for the southern room, totalling 5969 bricks. To mine that much clay, at 700 per 1.5 hours came out at just under 13 hours (round up to 13 to make it easy). To craft the bricks, at 700 per hour as he's an experienced crafter, would take 8.5 hours. So 2 hours a day mining for 7 days, and 1.2 hours of crafting for 7 days would come to the required hours to make these bricks. I've also been vague in the story as to the precise times he spends on these activities, so he could have spent more time on it, but to show that it can be done, the above times is how I calculated 7 days._

 _The quantity of bricks was calculated using a building website. Using the assumption that the eastern expansion had three walls; the northern 12ft by 10ft, eastern 24ft by 10ft and southern 12ft by 10ft, they required 846, 1645 and 846 bricks respectively. With the southern expansion; the western wall 10ft by 10ft, southern wall 18ft by 10ft and eastern wall 10ft by 10ft, they required 705, 1222 and 705 bricks respectively. That's a total of 5969 bricks._

"I see no need to publicise this loan or the activities of this smithy. The only people that would know is; yourself, I, and King Roald if he is informed for a royal decree."

"Oh he'd be informed, but not for a royal decree. You will have to sign a contract to say you promise not to broadcast your business relationship with this bank at all costs, we have absolutely no association with you whatsoever, understand?" Urist started nodded vigorously. "And you will be liable for the costs of reassuring the public should this information come to light. That's _if_ we offer you the loan of course."

"Of course."

"Now, by what other means will you have of repaying this loan?"

"Erm, continuing from where I left off, we would be able to supply blacksmiths with metal bars too. Again this isn't limited to just Keldagrim. And erm, with my new invention, which I have patented, by the way, I can repair many of the buildings in Varrock."

"Should King Roald commission you for such a task."

"Yes, and I have the means of supplying builders with cheaper materials, and even work as an architect if required. I have the capabilities of such an undertaking, demonstrated by my ability to create this new product."

"Of course, _if_ such construction is required. The population of Misthalin manages to sustain itself without the need for building new houses or shops. Many of the population can't afford such luxuries, or to rent it from those that can. The only construction, I can see, would come from the king." Urist struggled to find a reply to this. "I'll give your application some thought and get back to you when I've made a decision. Thank you for attending."

"Thank you." Urist stood and shook Ronald's hand once he stood. Ronald opened the door for him and off he went, nervously sweating and with weak legs. He returned home, changed into some work clothes and, taking his pickaxe and wheelbarrow with him, made his way to the small clay pit he had found on the road to Beefy Bill's trading cart. After spending a few minutes composing himself, he spent the afternoon filling his wheelbarrow with clay and depositing it at the bank he had just had the meeting at. He managed to fill three large boxes and twelve small boxes with his clay. At the end of the afternoon, he requested the boxes be transferred to the bank near the east gate, so that once he had the time to use the clay, he didn't have to transport it far to the pottery building opposite Aubury's Rune Shop.

A week later, Sani appeared at Urist's stall and leaned on it to talk to him more personally.

"I drew up some plans for your proposed expansion, detailing where equipment's going to be moved to and which walls will be erected or dismantled. I put them forward for planning permission and I've got it. I've arranged with a stonemason to dismantle the eastern wall and the ruins inside the building. He will transport them to his masonry and use them elsewhere. Once the two walls of the southern expansion are put up, he will dismantle the south stone wall currently there now. He says he can start on Monday."

"Would you be willing for the expansion to go ahead even without the furnace?" Sani looked a little taken back but soon replied.

"Of course, if you're willing to still put the walls up as planned."

"I will honour that. I have started gathering the clay, but have yet to make any bricks."

"Is there any news of the furnace?"

"Nay, I have yet to secure the money for it. I shall let you know if I do."

"Ok. I'll look forward to hearing from you." Sani returned to his smithy.

Later that day, in the early afternoon, a bank cashier exited the and started walking eastwardly.

 _She's most likely heading to the general store to pick up some lunch._

She walked past the tent and around the fountain and continued to Urist.

"Hi, Mr. Loric? Urist Loric?"

"Yes?"

"I'm on my lunch break but thought I would hand delivery this myself, saves having a delivery boy do it." She handed over a sealed letter and made her way to the general store. Urist opened it up and read the letter carefully.

 _Dear Mr. Urist Loric,_

 _I am writing to you on behalf of the bank to inform you of the result of your application for a loan. Assuming you agree to the terms we discussed previously, it is my honour to inform you that your application has been successful. The money will be in your account as of the day you receive this letter. Good luck with your business venture._

 _Yours sincerely_

 _Mr Ronald_

The second page was a list of repayment dates, the first in six months time and monthly after that. Urist noted the interest rate was ten percent, meaning he'd ultimately repay a hundred and twenty-one thousand, six hundred and fifty coins over five years. Two months short of ten years in fact.

 _I guess it's a way of ensuring I repay_ within _ten years._

The third page had a mini statement of his transactions. It showed he previously had six thousand one hundred and twenty coins, plus the ninety-five thousand, came to a total of a hundred and one thousand, one hundred and twenty coins.

A shadow appeared over Urist's stall and a horse neighed. Urist looked up to find Lakki smiling at him atop a cart full of goods.

"Baraek, will you look after the stall for me?" Urist shouted over to the fur trader, he nodded in response.

Urist held onto the reigns of the horses and led them to the bank next to Sani's smithy. Urist led Lakki inside, presented a cashier with his bank booklet and pointed Lakki out to him.

"Lakki here has some goods of mine, would you be able to accept them off him on my behalf?"

"Certainly, sir. I'll record the goods in your book as I receive them." Urist nodded and turned to Lakki.

"Leave the thread and the gemstone on the cart, I'll have them off you before you leave. I need to write Drorkar a note." Lakki nodded and followed the cashier outside. Urist pulled out some parchment and a pencil, and made his way to the cart, taking a seat in the passenger side. He thanked Drorkar for shipping the order and requested Drorkar to purchase a furnace from the Consortium on his behalf. When Lakki returned to the driver seat, Urist gave him the note and asked him to give it to Drorkar. Urist got out and took the small box from the back of the cart, taking it to his house and making his way to Sani.

"I've secured the money and negotiating the purchase of a furnace," Urist said as he stepped inside the smithy. Sani stepped over and shook his hand.

Urist spent his morning's mining clay and transporting it to the western bank, his days on his market stall and his evenings using clay from the eastern bank to make bricks. He had to finish at dusk as that was when the bank closed, so he closed his stall an hour earlier to spend more time firing bricks. After seven strenuous days, he had enough bricks to extend the smithy.

Urist had the bank transport the first lot of bricks to the ruins at the south end of the smithy and started building the west facing wall and the south facing wall. He had built the west facing wall by the time a letter arrived from Drorkar.

 _Dear Urist,_

 _Thank you for your interest in a furnace. We would be able to sell you one for a total of a hundred thousand coins, including transport and installing it. As soon as payment is cleared, we will be able to dispatch the furnace._

 _Yours Sincerely_

 _Drorkar_

Urist wrote out a check with a note and sealed them, sending them back with the messenger. It took some time to complete the south facing wall, second largest of the six walls, but once it was completed, the stone mason dismantled the original south facing wall.

He moved onto the eastern expansion and build the north facing wall over the course of a week and the east facing wall over two weeks. The ruins in the centre of this expansion were removed and the original east facing wall. This left a carcass that required two more walls to close the building up; the south facing wall on the eastern expansion and the east facing wall on the southern expansion.

Urist wiped his brow after finishing this work and Sani walked over with a cup of tea.

"You've done a fantastic job. These new bricks are quite fascinating and much easier to work with."

"Indeed, would have taken a few months to get this far with stone. The furnace will be on its way soon. It may be worth me leaving these two walls un-built to help manoeuvre it into place."

"That sounds like a good idea. I have more anvils arriving too. Would you be willing to help me move all this equipment tomorrow evening?" Urist nodded. "The desk can go against the north wall, next to the window. The furnace can go against the south wall, with the vat of water next to it. The storage boxes can line the west wall and the anvils can be placed in the centre room and eastern room, with storage boxes in the eastern room too"

Urist spent the following evening help Sani move the equipment into place and the pair went for a beer at the pub next to the south gate.

The following morning, Urist took a well deserved day off. A day off from the brick making and wall building anyway, the stall still needed looking after.

He rested against the wall at the back of the stall and looked at the clear sky. Suddenly, a piece of parchment was thrust in front of his face. Urist looked to his left and saw the hooded figure leaning against the wall too. He grabbed the note and read it under the table.

 _Urist,_

 _I have seen the work you have achieved with your new invention. I would like to commission you to use these bricks to repair the various buildings across Varrock. Maintenance hasn't been a priority as of late. I'm willing to pay you a thousand coins for the whole project and you need to source the materials._

 _Yours sincerely_

 _R_

Urist nodded and whispered; "I accept, I'll start this evening."

Roald disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.

 _I just hope I have enough time to do it before the furnace arrives. I already have his ring to make and need to make use of the furnace to repay the loan._


	7. Chapter 6

_The same rule applies where prices are derived from NCP stores rather than the G.E. That meant using the NCP store price for the clothes too, which even surprised me as to how expensive they are. But, I stuck to the rule nonetheless._

 _The 'jewellery moulds' are; ring mould, necklace mould, amulet mould and bracelet mould._

Urist raced around Varrock with a piece of parchment and pencil in hand, writing down the repairs required and an estimate of the amount of bricks needed. He needed roughly seventeen hundred bricks. It took a few days of early mornings and late evenings, but he made the bricks rather quickly. Gradually, building by building, he repaired the nooks and crannies, the holes and the cracks. A whole month went by before he finished these repairs.

The morning after he finished, a bombardment of knocking at his door woke him. Stunned, Urist wiped his eyes and crawled out of bed rather stiffly. He steadily made his way to the door and opened it. A guard wearing long bronze chainmail, an iron helmet with his face showing and plain leather boots stood upbeat at the door.

"Greetings, Mr. Loric. I'm Captain Rovin and I'm here to escort you to the King, he has summoned you."

"May I get dressed first?"

"Of course, apologies." Urist threw some clothes on and tucked a banana in his pocket. He followed Rovin to the palace, where he introduced Urist to the king in the room he had seen the king whispering to another fellow. "Urist, this is King Roald. Your majesty, this is Urist Loric." Urist bowed, Roald nodded and dismissed Rovin.

"I have your payment for the repairs, it is in that chest on the desk."

"May I?" Roald used his hand to signal he could. Urist stepped forward, opened the chest and counted the money in front of the king. Once it was all counted, he put it in his money pouch. "I'm afraid, your majesty, I haven't had an opportunity to create the ring you requested. I do, however, have the ... stone and the gold ore ready to produce it. I'm currently waiting - "

"For the furnace to arrive, I am aware master dwarf. I have summoned you here today, not just to pay you for your work, but to commission you again. I have had the chance to look over your work and I am pleased with it. Are you aware of the ruins in the centre of the south wall?"

"Vaguely, your majesty, but not in great detail."

"I would like you to build a barracks for me there. There are a few buildings to the west of the church that are attached to it. Guards already live there, but if you can convert the buildings so that the quarters take up less space, or hold more guards, that would be of service."

"What is the budget to be on the project, if I may ask?"

"Ten thousand coins. And I'm willing to pay for the materials and any extra labour you require."

"If I may, your majesty, I would like to ask some terms of my own. Are you aware of the ruins to the south of the smithy I've been renovating?" Roald nodded graciously. "I would like ownership of the land and planning permission to convert the building into a house. I would also like a guarantee to be offered any construction work that may be required by the crown in the future before anybody else."

"I shall have both decreed for you." Urist's heart started pounding with joy.

"Thank you, your majesty."

"I do believe your furnace has arrived. It's being installed as we speak." Urist was speechless. "You may see for yourself." Roald signalled to the door. Urist bowed and left, running as fast as he could to Sani's smithy. As the king had said, the furnace had arrived and Lakki, with a helper, was just finishing the installation. Urist stepped over to Sani and they both stared at the furnace.

"It's beautiful."

"You're just saying that because it cost you money." Urist snorted.

"Damnit. I need to get these two walls up now."

"Don't sweat it. You'll be doing enough of that with the furnace."

"Nay, I'll do it. The other work I have will be more time consuming and I can't expect you to work in the cold, especially with the winter approaching."

"Tell you what. If I could get you cover for your stall, and if I put my work off for a week, would you be willing to work with me for a week flat out to get them done?"

"Sure. Who's the cover?"

"There's a homeless person wandering the backstreets. His name is Charlie. If you can find him lodgings and food, I'm sure he'll help you."

"I'm sure I can provide him with that for a short while. I'll have the bank deliver the bricks and some ore -" Urist rubbed his nose signalling to Sani it was gold or silver. "- and find this Charlie." Sani nodded and off Urist went. He visited the bank across the road and had them deliver the ore, walked to his house and pocketed the dragonstone, and went to the easterly bank. He asked them to deliver the last of the bricks and headed towards the south wall. With his house to the right and Aubrey's shop to the left, he stumbled across a rough looking person.

"A few coins for the poor." He asked with his hand out.

"Is your name Charlie?"

"Depends who's asking."

"My name's Urist. I can give you food and lodgings."

"What's the catch?"

"You'll have to work for me."

"Doing what?"

"To begin with, just to man my stall."

"I guess that's a fair deal." Charlie offered his hand and Urist shook it.

"Here's my house." Urist took him inside and showed him around. He then readied the bath and left Charlie to it, taking a parchment and pencil with him.

Urist made his way to the ruins and looked all around. He asked a guard to show him the quarters, he was surprised to find the guard was quite accepting of his request and guided him around. Urist made notes all the way around. Afterward, he made his way to the front of the wall and took detailed drawings of the ruins. He noted a short portion of the wall on the left side of the ruins could be reinforced, or knocked down to extend the building. Walking back to the church, he walked past the potter's building and through the gate next to it. This was notably the soldiers quarter. The Dancing Donkey Inn was infamous for selling cheap beer and a location for unscrupulous women.

Urist made sure his work was completed quickly. He noted that there was a group of houses in one large building here, housing guards too. The building had an unfamiliar shaping. Rectangle on three sides, one side was curved.

 _This could be reconstructed to make it a complete rectangle._

A small gap between this building and another building, directly south of the pub, linked two houses for guards. The first building also had a gap between the building and the wall on the eastern and southern sides.

 _I could extend the building to the wall, adding more rooms, and extend it to the other building, creating one large housing complex. These new rooms would mean those living in the houses to the west of the church could move into these new rooms, leaving a larger area for the barracks._

Urist entered the Fancy Clothes Store and started perusing around.

"May I help you?" A lady said.

"I was wondering if you have any ..." Urist noticed most of the clothes in the shop were actually 'fancy'. "Ordinary clothes. Just a pair of trousers and a shirt will do."

"I have some in the back. The shirt is five hundred and eighty-five coins and the trousers are nine hundred and ten coins."

"Blimey! That's a lot. I'll need to visit the bank to withdraw some money."

"I'll fetch them out the back whilst you do to have them ready," Urist grunted and made his way to his house instead.

 _It's a good job I sold most of those boots after all._

Urist opened a small chest from under his bed and counted out one thousand, four hundred and ninety-five coins. He only had six pairs of boots left, but the forty he had sold in the last few weeks had totalled fifteen coins short of this amount. Fortunately, the crafting supplies covered this and the few costs he had incurred.

"Charlie!" Urist shouted, Charlie replied. "I'm just fetching you some clothes. If you can hold on a bit longer, I'll bring them too you, saves you putting them old clothes back on."

"Thank you." Urist pulled one of the pairs of boots out and left it next to the door on his way out. He returned straight to the clothes store. The woman was folding the clothes neatly for him. Urist grunted and handed her the money. He took the clothes and took them straight to Charlie.

"I'll leave the clothes and the boots on the chair by the fire for you. I'll let you get dressed now and come to the market when you're finished."

"Ok," Charlie called. Urist made his way to his stall and took a perch on his stool. He just started to settle when a customer appeared. His stall wasn't even open yet, but a customer meant paying his bills.

"Do you have any moulds in stock?"

"I do. I'll just open the stall for you." The woman nodded. Urist unlocked the boards that surrounded his stall and moved them, one by one, to the wall at the back of Baraek's stall where all the boards were kept. Urist returned to the stall slightly flustered but he made sure he didn't breathe heavily.

"I'd like some jewellery moulds, how much are they?"

"The jewellery moulds are five coins each."

"I'll take one of each, please." The woman counted out twenty coins from her pouch whilst Urist picked out the four moulds.

"Could I interest you in a tiara mould? They're normally a hundred coins each, but I can do it for ninety seen as you've bought these."

"Make it eighty coins and I'll have it."

 _Pfft. Mind, it did only cost me thirty-three to buy._

"You have yourself a deal." Urist picked one out and she counted out the rest of the coins. She handed the hundred coins over and he passed her the moulds. Charlie appeared as she departed. "Great to see you freshened up. Now, onto that job. Here's my stall." Urist wrote down the prices of the items he had for sale and handed it to Charlie. "There's the prices. If the items on the stall sell out, there's replacements in the chest underneath. We're not short of items yet, but if there is an item that gets desperately short, let me know when we're back at home, ok?" Charlie nodded. "Are you ok to look after the stall for the rest of the afternoon?" Charlie nodded again. "If you need any help, Baraek over there will give you a hand or I'm in Sani's smithy just over there." Urist pointed, Charlie nodded again.

Urist took a steady walk over to Sani's and was quite surprised when he arrived. Sani had already started working on the eastern facing wall, building enough of it to house the furnace snugly. Urist stepped over and patted him on the back.

"You've done a grand job. Has the ore arrived?"

"It sure has, it's in the first box next to the furnace." Urist cracked the lid open and shoved enough gold ore into the bar mould. He carefully placed the mould into the furnace and after a few minutes, the molten gold shone joyously. Urist prepared the ring mould with the dragonstone, pulled the bar mould out with the pair of iron pinchers and used it to pour the molten gold into the ring mould. He attentively lay the rind mould on the flat surface of one of the boxes at the back of the pile and cleaned the bar mould in a bucket of water. Sani brought over a cup of tea and the pair sat on some boxes to have a tea break.

Sani agreed to let Urist spend the afternoon drawing up his proposals for the military complex using the desk. It took him a few hours, but he knew what he wanted to propose so he didn't have to spend long on the creative process.

When they finished, Urist raced over to the palace and, with a guard escorting him, visited the king. With the guard at the doorway, Urist handed over the ring covered in a rag. Roald examined it carefully, noting its every sparkle and glitter, the weight of the ring and it's feel on his finger.

"You're workmanship is superb. How much do I owe?"

"A hundred and fifty for the gold ore."

"And for the labour?" Urist went to wave it off but Roald asked again.

"Call it fifty coins." Roald placed the ring in one of the draws of his desk and called the guard back in.

"Get Rovin to bring two hundred coins in here." The guard nodded and left.

"Your majesty, I have brought my proposals for the military base. I wondered if you could spare some time to look over them?"

"Certainly." Urist lay the plans on the desk just as Rovin entered. "Ah, Rovin, come and look over these plans with us." Rovin handed Urist the money, who put it in his pouch. He pointed over his various ideas and they were all welcomed by both men.

"And instead of hiring labour, it may be worth, if possible of course, having the guards pull a few shifts. It'll maintain their strength levels and they're already being paid. If something more urgent requires they're attention, construction can take a temporary pause."

"That's a great idea. I'll have it be they take orders directly from you."

"Thank you." Urist walked out with Rovin by his side and parted ways at the palace gate. Rovin headed south-east towards the military houses, whilst Urist made his way back to his stall. A stall with no Charlie.

"Do you know where Charlie's gone?" Urist shouted to Baraek. Baraek shrugged. Urist glanced over the stall and noticed some of the moulds were missing.

 _Oh no!_


	8. Chapter 7

_The shape of Sani's new smithy;_

 _albums/pp63/Tom_35_/IMG__

 _Creating selling prices for Urist's products were hard, as even buying the ores at the much cheaper prices from the ore seller in Keldagrim meant leaving very little profit at selling bars or armour to NCP store at their 'buy' prices. For example, Horvik normally buys mithril platebody's for 1,560 coins. Mithril ore from Keldagrim costs 162, and coal costs 45. That means each bar costs 342. Five bars cost 1710. That's before any profit and 150 coins above Horvik's buy price. His sell price, however, is 5200 and the G.E. price as of 9th December '16 is 2407. So for Urist to sell it for 2000, it's still below both the G.E. price and still leaves Horvik a considerable profit, whilst making Urist a profit too._

Urist boarded up his stall and locked it up and headed over to the smithy. Just as he reached the corner of the building, Charlie was leaving the smithy.

"Where've you been?"

"You said if I needed help, to come see you in the smithy. You weren't there, so Sani made me a cup of tea whilst I waited. I found out he was the one that suggested you help me out, so, I offered to help out a little, fetching him bricks when he needed." Urist started to clench his fist in anger. "It was ten minutes. I was only waiting for you."

Urist pointed a finger at Charlie. "Someone could have stolen something off the stall. In fact, there are moulds missing, someone probably has stolen some."

"Wow!" Charlie said with his hands up. "Sorr-y. I actually sold some. A monk, or someone dressed as one, came and said he's from the order of Zamor-a-kian mages, or something like that, and wanted to purchase a tiara mould. I noticed you had three on the table and quite a few in the chest. I did a bit of upselling and sold him fifteen in total."

"For a hundred coins each?"

"Yep. But I didn't know what to put on the stall to replace the ones I sold. With no spares left in the chest, I didn't want to put moulds out and find out you wanted the spaces leaving empty. Hence, I came to see you."

"I'm terribly sorry, Charlie. I shouldn't have got angry. I was just concerned as I asked you to man the stall and when I returned to the stall, it wasn't being manned. I'll re-order some more tiara moulds, but in the meantime, just fill the gaps with whatever's in the chest. I'm sorry."

"It's ok. When shall I close the stall?"

"I've already done it, to come and find you. If you're willing, we can help Sani a bit more?"

"Sure." The pair helped Sani. When the sun began to wither in the sky, Urist took a hundred coins from his pouch and asked Charlie to head to the flour mill by the Grand Exchange, to buy a meat pie. Normally Romily sold them for ninety-six coins but Urist told Charlie, Romily could keep the change. Charlie did as he was ordered and the trio enjoyed a large portion of pie over a natter.

Urist prepared the last of the boots and had Charlie take then to the stall with him the next day. He put the sixteen hundred coins takings, plus the hundred coins from the king, into his small chest under his bed. The rest of the week was spent on building the two walls at the smithy. On Sunday evening, Urist made the emerald, sapphire and ruby rings, and placed them in the chest under his bed.

Before bed, he wrote a letter to Grum at his gem store in Port Sarim and a letter to Zenesha at her platebody shop in East Ardougne asking if they would be interested in buying products from him. He also wrote a letter to Drorkar requesting him to ask the various shops in Keldagrim if they'd be interested too. If they were, could he purchase and send him the required materials. He sent the letters the next morning and talk a walk to Horvik's smithy to the east of the market.

A hammer was banging away as Urist approached.

"Horvik!" He called. Horvik turned around and greeted Urist. "I was just wondering if you'd be interested in buying armour from me."

"You're the fellow that fitted a furnace at Sani's smithy, aren't you?"

"Maybe. Why?"

"It could put me out of business. Before, I competed on a par with Sani. Now he can buy ores and sell his products cheaper as a result."

"Well, I could sell you bars at very attractive prices."

"How attractive?

"Iron bars for twenty-five coins, steel for a hundred and twenty-five, and mithril for four hundred."

"At those prices, I'd definitely buy iron bars. May need to do a little better on the other two."

"There's barely much profit in those prices."

"Hmmm. Armour you say? How about you make the armour at those prices? So you sell me a mithril platebody for one two thousand."

"That's what I was hoping to offer you in the first place. It saves you doing the work."

"It also makes my anvils redundant, but you're right, it saves me doing the work."

"I'll need to order the ores in, which'll take a few weeks to arrive, so would you like to make an order now?"

"I need some time to work out what I need. I'll leave your order at Sani's."

"Thank you." Urist paid a visit to the barracks to calculate how many bricks he would need. When he arrived, he was taken back with surprise. A mountain of clay had been piled at the back of the potter's building, just inside the gate to the military quarters. Guards continued to barrow clay past him as he stood with his mouth wide open.

After a few minutes of calming himself, he started working out how many bricks he needed. He worked out he needed a few short of thirty-seven thousand, six hundred bricks. Twenty-two short to be precise.

Urist caught the attention of the captain and told him precisely how much clay he required so the guards didn't mine too much.

"Could you show us how to make the bricks?"

"And what would I be being paid for, precisely?" Urist chuckled.

"For managing the project."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. Like you said, it'll keep the guard's strength and stamina up."

"Ok then. Follow me." Urist took him to the pile of clay and filled the mould with some. He took it to the potter's building and emptied the shaped clay onto the tray.

"Fill the tray with these and stick it in here." Urist opened the oven door and put the tray in. "They'll be in there for a few minutes." Urist waited until they were done and pointed out how the captain could tell the bricks were ready, before pulling the tray out. "And that's it."

"Thank you, sir. We'll get on it. How many bricks are we making?"

"Thirty-seven thousand, five hundred and seventy-eight."

"Wow! That's a lot."

"It is. We may not need all of them, but it's better to have too many than not enough."

"Yes, yes it is." The captain tugged his helmet and took the brick with him to the houses.

Urist made his way to Charlie and asked Baraek to look after the stall. He took Charlie west, past the bank and the manor, and north to Romily's flour mill.

"I've been here before."

"Yes, you have." Urist knocked on the door and soon Romily opened it.

"How can I help?"

"Are we able to use your mill?" Romily stroked his beard for a second.

"Where's your wheat?"

"Oh, I don't mean now. I mean generally speaking, on a daily basis."

"Ooohhh. Hmmm. You can use the mill, if you give me five pots of flour each day that you use it."

"Deal." Urist shook his hand. "Do you have a pot and some wheat? Just so I can show this young lad how to make a pot of flour." Romily nodded and let them in, showing them where the wheat was. Charlie lumbered it over his shoulder. Urist led him to the second floor and pointed him to the mill. Charlie threw the wheat into the machine.

"Now pull these levers in this order." Urist demonstrated and Charlie nodded. He led Charlie back down the stairs and using the pot Romily gave him, filled it with the flour. "And that's it. Would you be willing to do this all day?"

"Aye. But what about the pots and wheat?"

"I'll sort that out for you." Urist led him back to the stall and Charlie started manning it again. Urist crossed the road to the general store and sought out the shopkeeper.

"How can I help?"

"I was wondering if you have a regular supply of empty pots?"

"To an extent, yes. If I know a customer wants to purchase an amount of them on a regular basis, I can make sure I have them in stock."

"Would you be able to supply me with fifty pots a week?"

"That I would. You're the gentledwarf that owns the crafting stall opposite, aren't you?"

"Yes, if you could deliver them there, that would be great. I'll personally come to pay you at the end of each week." The shopkeeper shook his hand. Urist made his way to his house and wrote a letter to Seth, asking if he would sell Urist fifty bales of wheat every week and deliver them to Romily's flour mill. It was getting quite late in the day so Urist made his way to the smithy. He walked over to Sani, who put his hammer down to listen to him.

"Has a note been left for me?"

"Aye. That scoundrel Horvik was in 'ere, said he had a note for you."

"He's placed an order. I'm selling stuff to him."

"Oh right. That's not so bad then." Sani pulled the note from his apron pocket and gave it to Urist. "Listen. Would you be able to purchase ore on my behalf? I'm struggling to find a regular supplier."

"Certainly. Just give me a list of what you want and I'll order it for you. Make sure you don't mix your ore up with mine though." The pair laughed. "I'm about to make an order, actually, so would you like me to order anything for you?" Sani wrote down a few things and handed it to Urist, who nodded and left. He sent the letter to Seth and the orders to Drorkar, including the fifteen tiara moulds, with a delivery boy. When he returned home that evening, he had a proper look over Horvik's order. He had ordered; ten iron helms, ten iron square shields, ten iron platelegs, ten iron plateskirt's, ten iron platebody's, ten steel platebody's, five steel platebody's, two mithril platebody's and a hundred iron bars. Urist's order would cost ten thousand, one hundred and seventy-five coins. And the four hundred and ninety-five coins for the moulds.

 _Unless I have some hidden takings Charlie's not told me about, I only have two thousand, eight hundred and twenty coins to my name. I have about three to four weeks to gather the rest._


	9. Chapter 8

_Razmire Builders Merchants buys planks for 33 coins and sells them for 100. The G.E. price (11/12/16) is 233. I allowed Razmire to buy other planks too, as he is a builders merchant after all. The buy prices were calculated by multiplying the G.E price of the type of plank by 100 / 233, this is the Razmire's sale price of normal logs / the G.E price. This calculated Razmire's sell price of the plank in question. This figure was multiplied by 33/100, this is Razmire's buy price divided by his sell price._

Urist stepped over to Benny's stall and pulled open a newspaper.

"Come and get your paper, still only fifty coins each!" Benny shouted. He turned to Urist and frowned. "What are you doing?"

"Just having a look at the classified adverts."

"Don't crease the paper too much, I gotta sell it y'know." Benny returned to his shouting. Urist, using his finger to point at them, scanned the adverts, particularly the 'wanted' items. A couple stuck out.

 _Wanted: Bolt's of cloth, willing to pay a hundred and ninety five coins each for them. Also wanted, bronze nails for two coins each, iron nails for nine coins each and steel nails for fifteen coins each. Construction Supplies, Varrock._

 _Wanted: Planks. Normal, thirty three coins. Oak, sixty six coins. Teak, a hundred and three coins. Mahogany, three hundred and four coins. Razmire Builders Merchants, Mort'ton._

Urist closed the paper and made sure it didn't look conspicuous compared to the others. He jogged over to the Grand Exchange and looked at the sign at the archway to find that Relobo Blinyo; a bald man with a small patch of hair on his forehead, a sleeveless waist coat and plain trousers, is the agent in charge of logs.

"Are you Relobo? The agent in charge of logs?"

"Yes, sir, I am."

"Do you know anyone selling logs?"

"I have some clients interested in selling, yes."

"Could I buy logs from them?"

"Of course. Follow me." Urist followed him to the Grand Exchange Clerk, where Relobo handed over an identification note. The Clerk wrote down his details and looked to Urist. "If you let this lady know what you would like to order, she will do the paperwork. Return to me when you're finished." Urist nodded and Relobo returned to his pitch.

"How much are normal logs? Oak logs, Teak logs and Mahogany logs?

"Four coins, eight coins, twenty coins and fifty coins." Urist stroked his chin whilst he thought for a few moments.

"And are balls of wool still five coins?" The woman flicked through her book until she arrived at the appropriate page.

"Yes, sir, we have people selling at five coins each."

"Can I have; ten logs, ten oak logs, five teak logs, five mahogany logs and twenty balls of wool."

"Certainly." The woman wrote down all of the information. "That'll be five hundred and seventy coins, please." Urist withdrew the last of the money in his bank, combined it with the money in his money pouch, and paid the clerk. "Thank you." The woman wrote out the note for Urist and a copy for Relobo. "Take this one to Relobo."

Urist did as he was asked and Relobo glanced over the note.

"Where would you like the logs delivering to?"

"The Varrock saw mill, please."

"Certainly. They can be there in a couple of hours, if you would like them that quickly."

"Aye, please. If I were to order again, how quickly could you have them here in Varrock?"

"We have a small amount stored in Varrock and have daily deliveries. If you buy all our wood for the day, we'd have to run the order over a few days until the order is fulfilled."

"Thank you. Who is the seller?"

"I'm afraid I can't give their details out freely, but it is a merchant in Morytania."

"Thank you." Urist made his way to the bank opposite Sani's smithy and handed over his bank book. The cashier wrote down his details.

"How may I help?" Urist handed over the note for the balls of wool.

"May I have them delivered to the bank in Taverley, please?"

"Certainly." The cashier wrote down the details. "That will be done for you. Is there anything else I may help you with?"

"That's it, thank you." Urist ran as fast as he could to the saw mill, panting heavily when he arrived. He leaned on the desk to catch his breath. After some minutes, he stood up straight.

"How may I help?"

"I have some logs arriving soon, for a Mr Urist. I'm Mr Urist. I was hoping you would mill them for me?"

"Of course. What logs are they?" Urist told him and he wrote it down in his log book. "To mill them, the; logs will cost twenty five coins each, oak logs fifty, teak logs seventy five and mahogany two hundred and twenty five. That comes to two thousand, two hundred and fifty coins, please." Urist paid up and the miller wrote out a receipt for him. "Where would you like them delivered to?"

"The bank just inside the east bank." The miller wrote it down.

"If we receive them soon enough, we should have them at the bank by the end of the day."

"Thank you." Urist made his way to the eastern bank and informed them of the incoming planks.

At the south gate, the guards warned him of some suspicious activity from the druid circle. Urist headed east with his wheelbarrow and filled half of it with iron, copper and tin. At the western mining site, he filled the other half with enough tin to smelt with the copper, some more iron and a very small amount of silver. He took it straight to the furnace and smelted the silver into bars. He smelted the bronze and iron, and hammered them out into nails. A total of forty five iron nails and a hundred and thirty five bronze nails were produced.

Urist deposited them at the western bank and asked the cashier to transport them to the eastern bank. He wrote a note for Charlie asking him to look after the house and to store the pots of flour there. Instructions were given on what to do whilst he was away. He gave the note to Sani

"Could you ask Baraek to look after the stall whilst I'm away?" Sani nodded. "And if the ore delivery comes, could you accept it?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Thanks. And ... "

"Could I borrow some money?"

"How much were you thinking?"

"Three thousand five hundred coins?"

"Hmmm."

"I'll be able to repay it within a few days of returning."

"Only if you're sure you can. It'll leave me in a dangerous position if you don't."

"I'm positive." Sani withdrew the money from the bank and handed it to Urist, who put it in his empty pouch. "Thank you dearly. I will not forget this. I'm off to Taverley then, I shall return soon." Sani shook his hand.

Now it was time to head to the druid village of Taverley. With barely half a day left, he set off and made it across the river to the barbarian village in the dark of night. He tethered his horse at the well and the barbarians rumoured generosity was excelled a hundred fold in real life. They put him up for the night in the tavern, after providing a share of the spit roast and a keg of the homemade beer. Singing, dancing and storytelling provided refreshing entertainment.

Urist left before dawn the next morning and followed the road to Drorkar at his power station above the dwarven mines. Drorkar was a little surprised at Urist's sudden appearance.

"I do believe your order is currently making good progress."

"That's great to hear. I just thought I'd pay a visit as I'm on my way to Taverley."

"Oh, I apologise. I thought you were here about the order."

"Actually, whilst I'm here, I was wondering if you have any iron and coal for sale?"

"I'm sure I can spare some if I'm to make profit. I pay forty-five coins for coal and seventeen for iron, so how about fifty for coal and twenty for iron?"

"That seems fair. How much do you have?"

"Spare? Twenty coal and eleven iron."

 _That's one thousand and eighty-seven coins._

"I'll take it." Urist counted out the coins and handed them over. Drorkar had one of his workers put the minerals on the cart and shook Urist's hand.

Urist sped on and made it to Doric's workshop in time to catch him before he closed.

"Doric! I've come to visit."

"Greetings, Urist. You're looking well.

"And yourself." Boric grunted in the back ground and he retrieved some steel bars from the furnace. "I have some iron ore and coal on the cart I thought you'd be interested in."

"As a matter of fact, it would help out a lot. Especially with this order from the White Knights. How many do you have?"

"Twenty coal and eleven iron."

"How much are you asking for them?"

"That's the thing. I'm willing to break even on them if you'll put me up for the night."

"Of course I will. So how much are they?"

"Seventy-five on the coal and twenty five on the iron, and I'll smelt it for you."

"Pffft. You drive a hard bargain. I guess I can do that though, so long as you deliver a cart of armour to the castle."

"Are they ready to deliver this evening?"

"They are, once I've hammered out your steel."

"I can do that if you tell me what you want."

"Two platebody's and a steel sword." Urist nodded and fetched the ores from the cart. Boric started loading the cart with the armour and weapons, whilst Urist smelted the bars, using some of Doric's coal, and hammering out the products. Urist loaded them on too once he was finished. "We'll be upstairs when you return." Urist nodded and started on his journey. It took a couple of hours each way to the castle, and the guards demanded Urist empty the cart, adding another half hour to the journey. It was pitch black by the time Urist returned to Doric's flat above the workshop. Doric and Boric had finished their tea by the time Urist sat at the table, tired and weary. Urist's bowl of stew lay at the table, no longer steaming. He spooned it down and spent the evening catching up with his long esteemed friend.

The following morning, Doric paid up and waved Urist off as he passed through the gate to Taverley. He took the road south, over the bridge and to the bank. After tethering his horse, he entered the bank, handed the cashier his bank book and requested the wool.

"It arrived this very morning, sir." The cashier turned and fetched them from the small chest, handing them to Urist when he returned to the counter. "Is there anything else I can help you with today, sir?"

"Actually, I believe there's a loom here in Taverley. I've long since known it was here, but require direction to its precious location."

"Certainly. If you follow the road north, and it's just before the smithy."

"Thank you." Urist led his cart along the directed route. He eventually heard the spinning of the wheel and followed it to the building that housed it. There was a door, only a doorway, so Urist stepped into the doorway. An elderly lady was spinning the wheel. Urist coughed and the lady turned to him.

"I was wondering if you would spin this wool for me."

"It will cost a coin per item." Urist nodded and handed over the wool. "What would you like?"

"Five bolt's of cloth, please." The lady weaved and handed over the cloth. Urist handed over the five coins and put the cloth on the cart. He headed south again and passed an empty sty. South of the sty was a farming shop, Urist had noted it on the way to the loom. He popped inside and spoke to the farmer.

"What do you have for sale?" The famer pointed him to a list on the wall that had the products and the prices. Urist scanned it and turned back to the farmer. "I'll take it all except the cabbage seeds."

"Goodness gracious!" The farmer counted everything up. "That'll be two thousand and thirty coins, please." Urist counted out the coins and handed them over.

"Would you be able to take the buckets to the bank for me? There's no rush to do it, but it's going to be near impossible to get them all on the cart."

"I will. Thank you for ... well, buying pretty much everything." The farmer helped him load his cart and off he went back to the bank. The same cashier served him.

"I have a farmer delivering some buckets here for me. A hundred of them to be precise." The cashier wrote this down. "Would you be able to transport them to the western Varrock bank for me?"

"Yes, we'll do that."

"Can I deposit these plant cure's and have you deliver those too? They are quite delicate and mildly valuable." The cashier accepted the vials of yellow liquid and made a note of it.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"That's it, thank you. Oh, actually ... Do I have an overdraft?" The cashier looked a little stunned and checked the account details.

"Actually ... yes, sir, yes you do. A two thousand coin overdraft."

"May I withdraw the overdraft amount then?" The cashier nodded and counted out the coins. Urist put them in his pouch. "I'll repay it in Varrock." The cashier nodded. Urist left and passing through the gate next to Doric's workshop, headed south to Falador once more. He weaved through the buildings, along the cobbled street and always keeping the castle to his right. The sun was setting as he passed through the south gate. There was a patch of trees to his left, caressing the wall. Urist set up camp there and in sight of the guards in case of any unwanted attention from highwaymen.

 _That would be the last thing I need right now. Overdrawn, in debt and without these goods would be my ruin._


	10. Chapter 9

Urist was woken up by the clanging of tools nearby. He sat up and looked around. A woman was sorting out some boxes at the back of her building south of where Urist was sat. He mounted his cart and returned to the path, taking it south, then east to the front of the building.

"Excuse me!" Urist called. The woman appeared and came to the cart. "I noticed your farm and was wondering if you have anything for sale?"

"I do." She pulled a crumpled up piece of parchment from her back pocket and handed it to Urist. He read through it and handed it back.

"I'll take all but the compost." Her jaw dropped and eyes bulged. She had to think for a few minutes.

"That'll be one thousand, two hundred and eighty coins, please." Urist paid her the money and gave her a hand loading it on the cart, except the buckets.

"Could you take the buckets to the bank at Draynor? I'll be there later to inform them of your delivery."

"Of course. I'll get my husband to do it."

"Thank you." Off he continued, past the crop field and through the gap in the slate wall. The path took him the long way around Draynor to the bank, right up to the wheat field before turning.

"I have a delivery of buckets arriving here later today. Could you have them delivered to the western bank in Varrock?"

"Certainly." The cashier said as he wrote it down.

"And I have quite a few plant pots on my cart I'd like to deposit, and some plant cure. Could you have those delivered too?" The cashier nodded.

"I'll meet you around the back to accept the plant pots." The cashier did just that and gave Urist a hand unloading them. Afterward, the cashier gave Urist his bank book back and helped him turn the cart around.

He noticed a seed stall on the market so stepped over. There was a price list on the table, Urist glanced it over.

"I'll take the potato, krandorian, wildblood, marigold, barley, hammerstone and asgarian seeds, please."

"At once." The stall holder knelt down and fetched them from the chest under the stall. Once they were call collected, she wrapped them up. "That'll be -"

"Two thousand, six hundred and forty coins?"

"Please." Urist handed over the coins and welcomed the seeds, putting them straight on the cart.

He took the road he had just taken to get back to the crossroads and turned eastward. he kept on it to the wheat field by Beefy Bill's and headed north. He arrived at Bill's about an hour after the sun had set. Bill had a bonfire lit and was just eating his tea when he looked up at Urist.

"Urist! My friend. How are you doing?" Bill stood, placing his plate on the log, raced over and helped Urist down.

"I'm very good, thank you, but quite tired if I do say." His tummy grumbled.

"And hungry by the sounds of it."

"Very." Bill led the horse to his caravan, tethered him and fetched some beef out to cook for Urist. Urist took a seat opposite Bill and rubbed his hand over the fire. Bill started to fry the beef in the pan that was still warm from cooking his beef. "How are you?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Starting to get a bit cold at night but that's autumn for you."

"It is. And darker sooner. How is the cart doing?"

"Alright. Adventurers mostly come by for food and cowhides." Urist looked at underneath the caravan.

"I see you've sold all those pots of flour."

"I have. Set me up for the winter that did."

"I could say the same about those cowhides."

"How is your stall?"

"Quite good. I made hard leather boots out of those cowhides. Sold all but five pairs of them. Bought a load of food from Seth last time I was here. Sold it like hot cakes."

"I hear Varrock's got a new furnace. You won't be taking those trips to Lumbridge anymore." Urist grinned. "Did you have anything to do with it?"

"I may have made a business transaction."

"No way!" Bill forked the beef onto Urist's plate and handed it to him. He picked up his own plate and started eating again. "You're a very surprising dwarf." They spent the evening catching up and Urist took the pleasure of sleeping in the company of another friend.

Early next morning Urist woke to Bill setting up his stall. He stretched and yawned before talking a stroll over to the stall.

"How much are your empty pots? And the pie dishes?"

"A coin each for the pots and three coins each for the dishes. I have thirty pots and ten dishes."

"I'll take them if you load them." Bill chuckled. Urist counted out the coins as Bill loaded the cart, handing them over when he had finished. Bill shook his hand and bid him farewell.

Urist pulled up by the western bank and deposited the cart full of goods, except the empty pots and pie dishes, and asked for the cloth to be delivered to the east bank. He took those back to his house. It was in its usual state, but with Charlie's pots of flour under the windowsill. Urist put the empty pots by the full ones and took the pie dishes to the kitchen. The money pouch was emptied onto the kitchen worktop and Urist counted forty-five coins. Forty-five coins change from six thousand and fifty-five. He puffed as he returned the coins to the pouch and sat in his chair by the fire.

The sun shone through and woke Urist wearily. He sat for a minute listening to see if Charlie was still there, but he had come and gone. He got ready and took a walk to the eastern bank.

"Can I withdraw a note for the planks, the cloth, and the various nails, please?"

"Certainly." The cashier prepared the notes and handed them over. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you." Urist took a leisurely walk to the sawmill operator.

"How may I help?"

"I believe you're interested in purchasing bolt's of cloth?"

"Aye, yes, for a hundred and ninety-five coins each."

"And bronze and iron nails?"

"You've seen my advert, haven't you?" Urist nodded with a beaming smile and placed the notes on the table. The sawmill wrote down the quantities and the purchase prices.

"I'll give you one thousand, six hundred and fifty coins for all these."

"Deal." The operator pulled up a chest from under the counter and counted out the coins, handing them over when he had finished. He put the notes in the chest and returned it to below the counter.

Urist slowly walked through the trees to the north gate, past the church and through the palace gardens to the market square, then to the western bank.

"I'd like to withdraw notes of the seeds, except the marigold, barley, hammerstone and asgarian seeds, please." The cashier nodded. "And can I have notes of the farming equipment, except the buckets and empty sacks, please." The cashier nodded again and prepared the notes.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" Urist shook his head and accepted the notes, walking to the Grand Exchange in due course. One of the clerks eventually became free, so Urist stepped forward.

"How may I help?"

"I'd like to sell these, please."

"Certainly." The cashier started flicking through the large accounts book with orders, and wrote down the tallies on a separate piece of paper. "Ten onion seeds, nine coins each. Twenty potato seeds, thirteen coins each. Ten krandorian seeds, eleven coins each. Ten wildblood seeds, seventy coins each. Ten tomato seeds, eleven coins each. Ten sweetcorn seeds, sixteen coins each." Urist started to lose attention.

"Ten strawberry seeds, seventy-seven coins. Sixty watering cans, a hundred coins each. Two hundred plant pots, twenty-five coins each. Twenty gardening trowels, twenty-five coins each. Twenty spades, fifteen coins each. Twenty secateurs, thirty coins each. Twenty rakes, thirty-five coins each. Ten gardening boots, seventy-five coins each. Twenty seed dibbers, thirty-two coins each. Twenty baskets, five coins each. Twenty shears, thirty coins each. Twenty plant cures, a hundred coins each." The clerk added it all together. "That's a grand total of nineteen thousand, three hundred and ninety coins. Would you like help with anything else?"

"That's it, thank you." The cashier counted out the coins and handed them over. Urist put them in his pouch and felt some more notes.

 _Oh yes, the planks._

Urist stepped over to Relobo, who greeted him.

"I saw an advert for Razmire's builder's merchants, he was wanting to buy planks."

"Yes, that is correct."

"I was wondering, as you have connections in Morytania, if you'd organise the selling of my planks to him."

"Certainly. I'll buy them from you now and I'll have them transported when I have enough goods to go that way. Follow me, please." Relodo led Urist to the clerk, and like last time, the clerk wrote down details from his identification card. Relodo returned to his pitch and Urist handed the clerk the notes.

"Ten thirty-three's, ten sixty-six's, five a hundred and three's and five three hundred and four's." The clerk looked up at Urist. "That's three thousand and twenty-five coins. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Urist shook his head and the cashier handed over the coins. He took a few paces around the desk and handed the bank cashier his bank book, who wrote down his details.

"How may I help?"

"I'd like to repay my overdraft, please." The cashier flicked through a book and found Urist's overdraft.

"Two thousand coins, and two coins each day for three days. Two thousand and six coins, please." Urist counted out the coins and handed them over. The cashier wrote down the details. "Is there something else I can help you with?"

"No, thanks." The cashier returned his bank book. Next stop was Sani's. Sani was hammering away when Urist entered, but stopped as soon as he saw Urist. "I've returned and have your money." Urist handed over the coins and Sani put them in his pouch.

"Thank you. How was your trip?"

"It was quite successful and rather enjoyable, thank you. Have the ores arrived?"

"This money, yes. I've marked your boxes by the furnace."

"Thank you. May I use your desk?" Sani nodded and pointed. Urist took a seat and started to count out his coins. He had eighteen thousand, six hundred and four coins altogether and no longer owed anything from his trip. He still had the buckets, sacks and a few seeds left.

"Seth sent you a letter, it's in the draw." Urist pulled the draw open and ripped open the letter.

 _Dear Urist,_

 _I certainly would be willing to sell you fifty bales of wheat every week and transport it to Romily's for you. Each bundle will cost two coins each, including transport. Let me know when to start sending them._

 _Yours sincerely_

 _Seth_

"Thank you for your help, I'm just popping over to see Seth." Sani nodded. Urist nipped across the road to the bank and had two notes prepared, one for two hundred buckets and one for twenty sacks.

He exited the smithy and saw a merchant cart just turning at the fountain, heading south. He ran over and stopped the driver.

"Where are you heading?"

"Al Kharid, why?"

"Are you heading past Seth's farm, the farm with the cow field." The merchant nodded. "Would you be willing to drop me off at Seth's for five coins?" The merchant patted the passenger seat so Urist climbed up. It took a couple of hours to reach Seth's and Gillie was busy milking the cows opposite. Urist passed the five coins over and passed through the gate. Seth turned the corner from the back of the chicken coup.

"Welcome. Did you get my letter?"

"I did -"

"Come, come inside and have a drink." Seth opened the door and let Urist in, offering a seat as he poured them a drink each. "So when would you like me to start sending the wheat?"

"If you can start sending them at the start of next week, that would be great."

"I'll get to it."

"Seth, I've brought some products I wondered if you'd be interested in." Urist pulled the notes out and lay them on the table. Seth looked at them.

"How much would you like for them?"

"Thirty coins each for the sacks and four coins each for the buckets." Seth took a sip of his drink whilst contemplating the deal.

"Sure. They're good prices, I'm not going to argue with them." Seth shot up and fetched a box from a cupboard to the right of Urist. He counted out fourteen hundred coins and passed them to Urist. Urist took a sip of his drink and realised something.

 _If the ores have arrived, Sani must have paid for them. I owe him another ten thousand, six hundred and seventy coins._


	11. Chapter 10

Urist downed his drink and stood up.

"I must go, I'm terribly sorry for cutting our meeting short. I've just realised I need to be somewhere." Seth shook Urist's hand and saw him out. Urist walked as fast as he could, not passing any concern to the druids or the guards, and walking through the backstreets, arrived at the smithy just as the sun was setting. Sani was still hammering so Urist raced inside. Sani out down his hammer.

"What's the matter?"

"The ore arrived. That means you've paid for it on my behalf, correct?"

"I did, just about."

"How come you didn't ask me for the money earlier?"

"I didn't want to trouble you after your trip and was happy to have the lent money back."

"I have the ore money too." Urist counted it out on the desk and handed it to Sani. He counted out the rest and he now had nine thousand, three hundred and twenty nine coins left.

"Thank you." Sani said as Urist passed, who nodded to acknowledge it.

"I might as well start smelting some of these ores whilst I'm here." Sani started hammering again and Urist opened the first box. He put the bar mould in place and starting shovelling some coal in, then mithril ore. Ten mithril bars were made and he spent quite a few hours hammering them out. About half way between midnight and dawn, he had the two mithril platebody's ready. Sani had left many hours previous and Urist was rather tired, so took the opportunity to sleep at the desk.

The sun started rising about four hours later. Urist opened one eye, then the other and groaning, he stretched out as far as he could.

He made his way back to the furnace and started smelting iron ore. He made two hundred and thirty bars, and twenty five bars of steel. Hammering out the steel bars, he made the two steel platebody's by lunchtime and started transporting the goods. The mithril platebody's were taken first, then the steel platebody's, and the hundred iron bars split over ten boxes last. On the arrival of the last box, Horvik settled up, paying Urist nine thousand, six hundred and twenty five coins.

Urist took a quick lunch break and around three hours after midday, he started hammering out the iron bars into the armour and square shields. He finished around eight hours after midday, two hours after the sun had finally set, and using the wheelbarrow, started barrowing the goods across to Horvik. After just four journeys, he had transported them all. Horvik examined each piece of armour carefully.

"You've done quite a grand job. Very much equal to mine, maybe even better in some places. Thank you." Horvik paid the other three thousand five hundred coins, which Urist placed in his pouch, and headed home for the evening. He took great joy in sleeping in his bed that night.

The following morning, Urist made his way to the military base and caught the attention of the captain.

"We've made great progress, master dwarf. We have most of the bricks made."

"Would you be willing to have your men do the construction work?"

"Of course. We'll need to go over the plans." Urist held them up. The captain smiled and led Urist inside to a rickety table. Urist spread the plans out.

"If we can expand the houses in the east corner into a square, and extend it to the wall, that will allow for more rooms. If we then expand it westward, to form up with the other houses, that will give more housing. Those houses -" Urist pointed to the houses next to the church. "- can be extend southward by a couple of foot too. Now, the ruins. This first square next to the house can be converted to a weapons and armour storeroom, storing everything housed in that large room above us, plus a little more if organised better." The captain nodded at this. "The next wall to the west, can surround this storeroom and end at the house expansion. This 'L' shaped room can hold a fletching bench and be a storeroom for the logs and arrows. A wall parallel to the west wall of this storeroom will provide a great target practise site for the archers."

"That's quite a good idea."

"And of course, the trees south of the barracks can house targets for more advanced archers and even cavalry." The captain nodded. "Now, these ruins, if built in this way, can house plenty of horses. The ruins provide a great formation for a stables. I've suggested housing horses here." Urist pointed to the different marked points, the captain nodded. "And finally for the south facing parts, this rectangle on the far western side could be built to house melee training dummies."

"That will be plenty of training facilities for our guards. What about these rooms next to the church?" The captain referred to the already built rooms westward from the church.

"The current beds and similar furniture can be moved across to the new housing complex. The cooking ranges can be gathered in the western most room to create a large kitchen. If the eastern wall is knocked through, and the western and southern walls of this small square room knocked through, with the creation of the melee training room, these three area will be a large rotated 'L' shape. A wall needs to be built to connect the two northern walls. The western wall of this room we're in now can also be knocked down and the combined space of all these rooms, apart from the kitchen, can be turned into a large dining area. The large room above us can be converted into a meeting room for, well, military meetings, like making war plans and alike."

"You've really thought this through."

"That's what I'm paid for. There's a stonemason who will dismantle the unwanted walls and take any unwanted stone. The new walls will be built with the bricks and clay paste to stick them together." Urist explained how to make the paste.

"We should have that done within a month or two."

"Hopefully, especially with how quick your men have made those bricks from scratch. Anyway, I best get back to work." Urist shook the captain's hand and returned to his house. A note had been pushed under his door. Urist closed the door behind him and read the note.

 _Urist,_

 _My name is Hofuthand, I am the agent for weapons and armour at the Grand Exchange. I have a proposal I wish to discuss with you at the Jolly Boar Inn, just after dusk._

 _Yours Faithfully_

 _Hofuthand_

Urist looked up and over at the window. The pile of pots of flour was getting larger.

 _We need to get those dispatched._

Urist fetched the wheelbarrow and filled it with the pots. He took it to the western bank and deposited them, in exchange for a note. After a quick calculation of time required, Urist started walking to Drorkar as fast as he could, breaking a sweat before he had even reached the river.

He didn't bother knocking the door, as the sound of the steam engine dwarfed any sound he could make knocking the door. Drorkar was busy organising his workers as he entered, so he waited for a couple of minutes, away from Drorkar so he didn't appear to be listening in, and eventually Drorkar came over.

"To what do I owe the honour?" Drorkar asked.

"I'm terribly sorry to trouble you, but I have made some pots of flour, and by the time I sent you a letter -"

"Their quality would have started deteriorating."

"Right. I've brought a note and was hoping you could sort out the transport to Keldagrim for me." Urist handed the note over. "They're stored at the western bank in Varrock." Drorkar nodded.

"Randivor usually buys them for twelve coins each. For forty pots, that's four hundred and eighty coins. I've strapped for coins at the moment, would you mind if I knock it off your next ore order?"

"Certainly. Whilst I'm here, I was wondering if you could, on my behalf, gather orders for armour and weapons at Keldagrim?"

"Of course. I'll even order the ore for you so that the ores and orders arrive at the same time."

"Aahh. Would it be possible to pay for the ore a few days later? I won't know what ores are coming in until they arrive, so won't always have the money available there and then."

"That would be fine. Just bring the money here." Urist shook Drorkar's hand and, trying to keep to the fast pace he had arrived at Drorkar's, he raced back to Falador and after a breather at the east gate, entered the Jolly Boar Inn an hour after dusk. He looked around and there was a black knight, a hooded figure looking suspicious and sat at the back, a dwarf in a suit. A suit that appeared to have been made for a much slender figure than the one wearing it. The dwarf's glass was nearly empty.

Urist bought two beers and took them to the table.

"Hofuthand, isn't it?"

"It is." Urist put the beers on the table and took a seat. "I have a proposal for you. As you're aware, I'm an agent in charge of the buy and sell orders of weapons and armours for a range of clients." Urist nodded. "The problem is, I have a large number of buy orders, but not many people selling. Nowhere near enough people selling to fulfil the buy orders.

"I've seen the quality of your work, and even to dwarf's superior quality, your work is quite excellent. I was hoping you would help me fulfilling these orders for me."

"Right, I sense that there is more to this _help_ than just making armour and weapons for you."

"There is. I'd rather just source the products from one person, instead of depending on the Grand Exchange. Underproduction and overproduction, especially with armour and weapons, is quite dangerous to the economy of these products. Supply and demand _isn't_ equally matched all of the time, or even most of it."

"You're starting to waffle now."

"Sorry. I'm trying to say, I'd like to pass the orders to you, suspend the orders whilst you fulfil them, and reopen them when you are ready to _sell_ them."

"But doesn't that defy the Grand Exchange, it's rules and the whole point of you working as an agent. The whole point of the Exchange is to match buyers and sellers orders on their behalf -"

"It will still be doing that."

"Except with favouritism towards me. Horvik and Sani in Varrock alone will be at a loss as a result."

"Horvik has a shop selling to the public and Sani works through commissions. But if you don't want this work, I'll just have to find someone who does."

Urist grabbed Hofuthand's arm before he had chance to leave. "I'll do it. I would be lying if I said I didn't need the work." Hofuthand smiled and pulled a list from his jacket pocket, handing it to Urist.

"I'll suspend the orders when the exchange opens in the morning." Urist shook his hand and fetched another round in.

Back at home, Urist wrote out a copy of the orders, noting the items, quantities, the people who had ordered them and the locations of their shops. He kept the original list in his jacket pocket but the following morning, he took the spare copy to Sani for him to keep it safe. An order for ore was written out at Sani's desk to fulfil two of the orders and Urist sent it to Drorkar. The order came to eighteen thousand, six hundred and forty coins, minus the four hundred and eighty Drorkar owed him.

Three weeks later, Urist was expecting the order to be delivered but it hadn't arrived yet. He waited a few more days, but it still hadn't arrived.

 _I wonder if the ore's simply not coming. Looks like I might not be able to fulfil those orders after all._


	12. Chapter 11

Urist noted his pots of flour at the bank and took a walk to Drorkar's. He got as far as the bridge at the Barbarian Village when an unusual sight intrigued him. His order was being delivered, but the cart had broken down and was now on the bank facing the bridge. A wheel had come off causing the opposite wheel to be wonky and the bar attaching the two wheels had bent a little. Either the bar needs to be hammered straight again, or completely replaced.

Urist made his way to the cart where Lakki had returned from talking to a barbarian.

"Looks like the bar needs hammering out as a temporary fix, but it will need replacing soon."

"It's needed to be replaced for a while now, I keep telling Drorkar but he doesn't listen."

"Ok, I'll hammer it out to get you to Sani's smithy. I'll speak to Drorkar later." The pair pulled and twisted the bar out of the wheel hole and lay it flat on the ground. Urist spent a good hour hammering it back into shape. It wasn't completely straight, but it would do. They leaned the second wheel against the cart and had a couple of barbarians lift the cart into place whilst they worked the bar back into place. It wasn't an easy fit, but after some wriggling, it worked. Lakki started his journey east and Urist westward.

At Drorkar's, Urist passed over the note.

"Two hundred pots, that's two thousand four hundred coins." Urist nodded.

"Lakki's cart broke down at the Barbarian Village. I've temporarily fixed it but the part needs replacing. It's made me a little concerned though, as I need the ore delivering on time to make sure I can fulfill the orders in a timely manner."

"I understand. There is a quicker way to deliver between Varrock and Keldagrim. At the north western corner of the Grand Exchange, there's a trapdoor for people and a mechanical lift for products. A winch pulls a wooden lift up and down. At the bottom, a mine cart transports people and products between the Exchange and Keldagrim. It would also speed up the transport of the flour too."

"Thank you. I'll start using that. Will the ore be transported that way too?"

"It can do, if you want it to."

"Please."

"I'll organise it to be transported that way with the next order." Urist nodded and returned home. He just made it to Sani's smithy when Rovin appeared with the barracks captain by his side.

"We're here to escort you to the king." Rovin introduced. Urist nodded and followed. Instead of heading north at the fountain, they headed south. At the gate, they turned east and made their way to the front of the barracks. Urist was pleased to see it finished.

The bricks were a different colour to the stone wall, but it was an acceptable contrast. The stables looked beautiful at the front of it all, with the archery range being a nice companion. Archery targets were being attached to trees opposite too. The whole barracks looked grand and mighty in itself, before any guards even appeared from them.

King Roald was sat on a horse, with a company of ten guards surrounding him. He watched Urist as he arrived and observed the barracks.

"It's beautiful," Roald called to him.

"It is, your majesty." Roald nodded at a guard nearby, who stepped forward with a couple of money pouches and a couple of large rolled up pieces of parchments, and passed them to Urist. "Thank you, your majesty. Whilst we're here, I was wondering if I could make a request."

"Certainly."

"I was hoping to have the service of your guards to produce bricks for this building." He waved the parchment.

"I see no harm with that proposal. Rovin?"

"It would aid in our guard's training regime's. Drop the number of bricks you require to the barracks and the men'll get onto it as soon as you do."

"Thank you. It's a great help." Urist waited, continuing to examine the barracks, until the royal escort started to make their way back to the palace. Urist followed them and made his way to the ruins. He calculated how many bricks he needed, 4600 in total - eight hundred of them to build a first floor, eight hundred for each of the walls of the first floor and five hundred for the roof. The rest were for repairs, and after dropping the parchments off at his house, told the barracks captain of this figure.

At Sani's, Urist merged the various money pouches into his normal money pouch. The money for the order had previously been left at Sani's so he could pay when the order arrived. He now had fourteen thousand, two hundred and eighty-six coins. He worked out that the ore for another two orders would come to eleven thousand, eight hundred and eighty coins after the discount for the flour.

Urist wrote out the order and sent it to Drorkar. He started on smelting the bars. It took him the rest of the afternoon, all evening and until a couple of hours before midnight for him to smelt forty iron bars, forty steel bars, and forty mithril bars. The desk provided adequate comfort to sleep for the night and around six in the morning, when the smell of food being cooked wafted through the air, Urist arose and started hammering away. Sani appeared two hours later and started hammering next to him. His aim for the day was to hammer twenty scimitar's out of each metal.

Hours of toiling and sweating, with no food and the occasional cup of tea, come half way between midday and midnight, Urist had a couple of bank clerks help carry the boxes of scimitar's to the bank for him. They were noted and Urist took the notes to Hofuthand. Cautiously, he walked over and made the two orders go live again. They were for Zeke's Superior Scimitars in Al Kharid and the Smithing Smith Shop in Mos Le'Harmless.

He waved Urist over, who followed the usual process, and sold the scimitars. The cashier paid him twenty-two thousand coins and Urist gave the paperwork to Hofuthand.

A few days later, he thought he'd look over the ruins again and when he arrived, he was rather quite stunned. There were two piles of bricks. He quickly did some arithmetic and the piles were all the bricks he required.

Urist jogged over to the barracks and after asking a few guards, he met the captain.

"Thank you for having those bricks made for me. I've just seen them by the ruins."

"Yes, we were going to inform you today. Would you like any help with the renovations?"

"Only if you have the men spare."

"How many do you need?"

"Enough to remove a wooden floor."

"I'll send you four then." The captain called over four guards and told them to follow Urist. First, they needed to repair the ruins up to first-floor height. This was quickly achieved and they moved onto building the brick floor. Urist spent the next day helping them to make it and at the end of the day, he asked them to return in three days. They returned and started building the first floor walls.

The group started eating their lunch at midday and talking about life in Varrock when Sani appeared. Urist walked over to him and the spoke at the back of the building.

"Is everything alright?" Urist asked.

"Yes, great rather. I've come to tell you that the ore has arrived and I had Charlie bring it to the smithy for you."

"Thank you."

"So this is your new place?"

"It is. I'm just renovating it. Going to turn into a house for Charlie."

"Sounds like a good idea. Let me know when it's finished and I'll come and have a look."

"I will do." Sani nodded smiling and left. Urist returned to the lunch break. It took just over an hour to remove the last of the wood and the guards were in no rush to return to the barracks, so they helped him repair the walls.

The sun was close to the horizon by the time they had finished. They spent a further day building the roof and a stairway to the first floor on the outside of the building.

At the end of the project, the guards waved farewell and Urist visited the smithy. Sani had about an hour before he packed in for the day. Urist started smelting and made thirty iron bars, thirty steel bars, and thirty mithril bars. He hammered out ten bars of each metal into hatchets before drossiness rendered his eyes useless for high detailed work. He slept on the desk again.

The following morning, Sani woke him up and after a cup of tea, the pair got to hammering. Urist made ten iron scimitar's, ten steel scimitars and ten mithril scimitars. Around lunch time, he headed to the Grand Exchange to sell them. He looked all around but couldn't find Hofuthand. He asked the other agents but they all said he hadn't turned up for work that day.

Urist made his way to the smithy, quite concerned and wondering what had happened, and when he arrived, was quite surprised by two guards stood at the door opposite the bank.

"What's happening here?" Urist asked.

"Urist? Urist Loric?"

"Aye, 'tis me."

"Could you follow us, please?" Urist nodded and followed them. They escorted him to the palace and into the study, where Roald was leaning against his desk. He signalled to Urist to take a seat and the guards left to guard the doorway.

"What's happening?" Urist asked.

"I have a few questions for you, I trust you will answer them honestly."

"Of course."

"Do you know Hofuthand?"

"I do, he's an agent of the Exchange.

"How well do you know him?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is he a friend? A close friend? A business partner?"

"Out of the three; a business partner. But I guess a lot of people would say the same with his line of work."

"Could you empty your pocket, please?"

 _Sugar! The list of orders._

Urist did as he was asked, handing over his money pouch, which the king peeped into. He handed over a needle and thread, a very small sweet sized piece of coal and the list of orders. The king disregarded everything but the list, scrutinising it's every word.

"Do you know what this is?"

"I do. It's a list of buy orders for weapons and armour currently on the Exchange."

"And are you're aware that by having this, you're breaking several laws surrounding the Exchange?"

"I didn't realise it was that extreme, but I knew it was against the rules in some way."

"Thank you for your honesty." The king got up, walked around his desk and sat in his chair. He sat there for a few minutes thinking. "I have three conditions for your freedom. First, I have some buildings you will build for me. You will build a very small bank where the current deposit box is by the portal on the Lumbridge to Draynor road. It will only house one cashier, but the basement must be extensive enough to house, I'm forecasting, a lot of wheat, flour, and clay. Next, you will build a stone wall around the grassed area opposite the wheat farm at the mill near to Beefy Bill to leave just the path spare. The walled are will be turned into another wheat patch." Urist nodded. "Then you will demolish the eastern wall of the large wheat farm by Draynor and extend the field right up to the portal, leaving only the path accessible. And you will build a building suitable for salting fish by the Barbarian Village, the bridge next to Seth's farm in Lumbridge, and on the bank by the grave site in Lumbridge. We will be having people fishing in those areas and require a method of preserving the fish." Urist waited for a few moments to make sure the king had finished with his building requests.

"What is the second request, your majesty?"

"That you will be the kingdom's architect." Urist was taken aback.

"What does the role involve, your majesty?"

"Most of the time, not a lot. Some of the time, quite a lot. Mostly during war, you will be required to journey with my camp and advise on the destruction and, or, repair or rebuilding of buildings. Outside of war, you may advise on new buildings for the kingdom."

"Your majesty, forgive me, but won't that be a conflict during peacetime as I may propose buildings for the sake of promoting myself gaining a construction project."

"I'm a good judge of character and you have demonstrated you are honest. I trust you will only propose buildings that are needed. Besides, I am in no way obligated to accept your proposals, I am the king after all."

"What is the third condition?"

"I will have some gold and silver ore entering the city soon, along with some other ores. You will smelt them for me for free." Urist nodded.

"I will only accept your offer, if you reinstate Hofuthand and allow me to fulfill these orders."


End file.
